


When he sees me

by Purified_Anura



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bisexual Dave Strider, Dave is from Paris, Dave is staying with the Maryams, Exchange Student, Get it cause his last name is English, Homophobia, Humanstuck, Jake is the English teacher, Karkat hates his French class, M/M, Mentions of Bro - Freeform, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 44,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28409628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purified_Anura/pseuds/Purified_Anura
Summary: Karkat Vantas hates his French class more than anything. The kids are loud and obnoxious and no work ever gets done. When he’s told that there’s gonna be an exchange student in his class he expects him to be the same as everyone else. When they are forced to work on an English project together Karkat finds out that the exchange student is nothing like he’d thought he’d be.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 39
Kudos: 90





	1. He’s gonna be a prick isn’t he?

**Author's Note:**

> First Fanfic Woohoo! A few things I should mention. I’ve never written a fanfic before so I don’t know how long updates will take me and I do not have a beta reader so if there’s any errors just ignore them. When Dave speaks he uses «». There will be some French in this fic, I’ll put a translation in the end notes, sometimes Karkat will just say the translation in his head. I am not from France so I’ll probably be using French slang that people from France don’t use. Hope you guys enjoy! :D

Your name is Karkat Vantas and you hate French class so fucking much. It’s not necessarily a bad class, your teacher is decent and the language and culture itself is fine, but you just suck at speaking and pronouncing it. You aren’t the worst in your class since you have successfully conjugated the two most basic verbs in every tense but your accent sucks so much that hearing yourself speak is a little fucking cringy. Most kids in your class are way worse than you, so you take a little reassurance knowing that you aren’t the worse in the school but you still kick yourself in the ass over the fact that you can speak in Spanish with ease but for some reason French is giving you a hard time.

They are both romantic languages and your brother had assured you that you would be able to speak in French no problem because French and Spanish have the same foundation, but of course he was wrong for once in his life and your French sounds like a mix of Spanish and English which in turn, sounds extremely weird. The kids in your class are also all insufferable pricks and are basically all idiots who think the language is stupid as hell. The class is an elective and they didn’t have to take it so you aren’t quite sure why they’re in the class if they hate it so much. You took the class cause it would be an easy extra credit and it was either taking French or doing gym another year and you would gladly pick French any day of the week. Your French teacher is also incapable of controlling the class, so it’s basically just 70 minutes of kids screaming and playing rap music while the work sheets are forgotten on the floor. 

Twice a week you have to sit in a small class with way too many kids and grit your teeth so you don’t snap at them, you’ve done it before but nothing ever happened and your teacher actually reprimanded you instead of the blithering idiots in your class. It’s infuriating, you’d actually like to learn the language and to be able to practice it but so far it’s the month of December and your teacher has yet to get pass the first unit. You wonder if you’ll even be able to pass this class, it was an easy way out but now you’re not even sure it’s worth the extra credit. You take back what you said about it not necessarily being bad, everything is bad about the class except for when you do the history of the French language, which your teacher doesn’t even do anymore cause she’s completely given up on the class but in the beginning of the year when she did do it, it was always extremely interesting to say the least. Most kids in Texas however thought that leaning another language other than Spanish was just a waste of time and effort which is why you suspect that all the kids in your class don’t pay attention and at this point you don’t even have to speculate, you know that’s the reason since they tell your teacher every time they set foot in the class. 

The French language to you always screamed romance (probably why you want to be able to speak it flawlessly) but it’s also just a beautiful language. When people can actually speak it properly it just seems so flawless, like it should be earth’s official language. You being the hopeless romantic that you are, gravitated towards the language from a very young age, and when you found out that you could learn it you jumped at the opportunity. Yes it was for an extra credit, however at the time you thought if you could learn to speak it well, (which you can’t) you might be able to woo someone.

It’s a pretty cold morning as you make your way to the school that you detest with your entire being. It’s a Monday and from experience Monday always end up being the worst day of your week, so you are just praying that nothing too bad happens today. The first class you have is English which gives you a bunch of relief since it’s your favourite class and all you have to do is work on a writing assignment, which will be simple enough. Then you have French, which you are dreading since it will give you a massive migraine, but then the rest of your day will be pretty tame since you only have science and then business. You have a shit tone of homework due today for science but with your one hour lunch break you are positive that you’ll be able to get it done before the class. As you enter the front foyer of your school the only thing that can be heard is loud teenage boys yelling, “I like your cut G!” 

You furrow your eyebrows in annoyance. “Jesus fucking Christ, it’s fucking 8am.”  
You whisper to yourself as you quickly make your way to your English class. 

You always thought the popular stereotypical jocks that always had way to much energy were only in movies, that is t’ill you got to high school and then walking in the halls become more of a frat party for them and induce a headache on your part. You got to English class without a fuss and took your assigned seat right at the back of the class, lucky for you most of your teachers know you well enough to know that you work better when your at the back. They don’t know the other reason that you like sitting on the back of the class is because of how much commentary you make and how much you insult them, but in the back you can hardly be heard. 

“Ah Karkat, good morning old chap!” You look up to find your teacher, M. English. You often wonder if his last name is actually English, it just seems like too much of a coincidence that his name is English, he teaches an English class and he’s from England so he has an English accent. It can’t possibly be his real name but you’ve never bothered to ask since whenever other students ask him he usually just shrugs them off and flashes them a toothy grin. 

“Morning M. English.” You say with the most unenthusiastic tone you can manage. He looks at you with pity, it’s like he can feel how much you don’t wanna be at school right now. A couple of jocks stumble into the class before your teacher can continue to try and have a conversation with you. He’s told you multiple times that he’s a huge fan of the way you write and you are always a “good chap” he’s words not yours, to converse with, since you have ‘passion’ apparently. The jocks start making loud grunting noises trying to temp your English teacher. He’s basically the only teacher in the school that isn’t intimidated by them since he towers over them in height and is way more broader then all of them. He’s also threatened to fail them multiple times but after observing that the only way to shut them up is by ignoring them he’s loosened up on the threats. 

Your English class goes exactly how you thought it would. You basically just worked on your assignment while M. English talked about different colleges and universities and how they liked students that take academic English through their 4 years of high school, something about grammar on the entrance exams usually being horrendous. You keep to yourself as you walk through the crowded halls. Usually you’d go talk to Terezi but she’s been super busy with her girlfriend and not to be mean to Vriska but she’s kinda bitch and your already in a bad mood so going to see them before French class isn’t the best idea. You’d probably loose all your patience before even getting to your second period class. Just before you step into class you feel a hand on your shoulder, you nearly flinch. “Hey Kk try not to blow a fusthe in French classth.” Thank god it’s just Sollux.

“Fuck off when do I ever blow a fuse? I’m perfectly fucking calm and getting ready to regret not taking gym, which is something I never thought would come out of my mouth.” You try not to sound as agitated as you feel. 

“Whatever Kk, thee you at lunch.” And with that your left standing alone outside of your French class you open the door in one swift motion. Just like in your English class you take a seat in the back right beside the window, the class starts in 5 minutes so you try to get some of your science homework done before your French class becomes pure chaos. When class finally starts you hear a knock at the door and your teacher perks up from her chair as the class goes silent. There stood your principal with a please expression on his face while making his way to the front of the class.

“Hello students, I’m pleased to inform you that this class has been selected to host an exchange student,” What? “why this class you may wonder? Well we simply thought that he would fit in quite well here.” 

Everyone looks at each other trying to figure out what he means by ‘fit in here’. You furrow your eyebrows and pinch the top of your nose, if the principal thinks he’s gonna fit into this class than the kid must be a fucking asshole. The entire school basically knows about how shitty the kids in French are. 

“Thursday will be his first day, so everyone try to be nice.” And with that your principal takes his leave. Your teacher looks extremely nervous before she closes the door with a sigh and then turns to the class with a worried face. “Please try to behave when he comes on Thursday, so at least he’ll feel welcome.” Some of the kids snicker a little before the class is thrown into chaos as your teacher gives out some French homework. You turn to the window on your left blocking out the noise from the other students you allow yourself to think about this mystery exchange student. 

This wouldn’t be the first time your school has hosted an exchange program but they usually give more information about the students and it usually isn’t just one student usually it’s a group, last year a group of Japanese students came from Kyoto to spend 4 months, you were a junior so you didn’t interact with them but they seemed like a good group but you don’t think they’ve ever just had some random kid exchange by himself. Hell your principal didn’t even tell anyone where he was from, you hope he’s good at French cause if not than he’s not passing this class, you wonder if your teacher will actually teach when he comes, maybe the student will complain to the principal if she doesn’t, probably why she’s so nervous. You feel kinda bad for the guy that’s gonna leave his perfectly fine school to come to a shit show. He’s gonna have a shitty time, it kinda sucks that this unsuspecting kid is getting exchange to a random school in Houston and is probably gonna get bullied. The last exchange students did in the beginning, but after a few months people left them alone cause they didn’t pay too much attention. This poor fucker somehow managed to land a spot in this stupid fucking class, you left out a breathy laugh, you kinda feel bad for the poor guy but on the other hand your principal said he’d fit well in this class which must mean he’s a grade A douche bag so your empty shrivels up. 

The next few days pass extremely slow, you can’t tell if it’s because of the fact that you don’t wanna be at school or if it’s cause your kinda anxious to meet this mystery kid. Nothing too eventful happens over these days either. You go to your classes, pick up some food after school than go home do homework and than eventually fall asleep around 3. Insomnia is a bitch. It’s currently Wednesday and you haven’t had a through about mysterious exchange student in a while. When you enter the cafeteria Terezi waves you over to the table that she’s sitting at. You eat lunch with Sollux and Terezi while you watch Vriska harass Tavros in a “playful” manner, you’re positive that it could be considered bullying but Tavros doesn’t seemed bothered by it, so no one says anything. 

“So Karkat, I hear that your gonna have an exchange student in your French and English class.” Terezi says with the widest grin. 

“In my French class yeah, but not in my fucking English class. Where did you even hear that?” Terezi looks at you narrowing her eyes, smile still intact, like she knows something you don’t. 

“Yes Karkles in your English class and in your French class, I’m surprised that M. English hasn’t said anything to the class about it and it’s none of your business where I heard about the exchange student, it’s not like I’m on the student conseil or anything.” 

God dammit she’s right, she’s on the student conseil so of course she’d know about this new kid, which means that she’s also right about him being in your English class. Fuck the only class that you actually enjoy and it’s probably gonna get ruined by this fucking jackass.

You sigh and rub your temples before burying your head in your arms and letting out a frustrated groan. 

“Do you know anything about this fucking guy? Like where he’s from or his name or literally anything? The principal said jack shit.” 

Terezi perks up. “They wouldn’t tell his name, but he’s a boy and he’s coming from...” she hesitates smirking even bigger than before which you didn’t know was possible. “Paris, France.” 

Your eyes widen suddenly, your mouth feels dry, holy shit Paris is like one of the most romantic places on the fucking planet and some dude is leaving it to come to Houston Texas? Your mind is racing but you have no idea why, why are you getting so excited over the fact that some random person is coming from France, it’s fine and it’s not a big deal. You think of all the stereotypical French people from movies you’ve seen and how they are usually snarky assholes with a lot of attitude and you groan again. Not only did your principal confirm that this guy was probably gonna be insufferable but he’s also from France. 

“Kk, you good?” You ignore Sollux’s question and turn to Terezi. 

“Why the fuck is he taking French if he’s from France.” Terezi shrugs her shoulders.  
“It said on his application that he can’t speak in English, so they figured that he’ll at least have a fighting chance if he takes a French class. That’s also why he’s in your English class, something about him failing English at his school.” You go to reply to Terezi with a snarky comment but it turn into a scoff as you hear the bell ring. 

You say bye to your friends before heading to your next class. Although you’ve been able to keep the exchange student out of your head for the last few days he’s present and he’s the center of your thoughts, you ask the question to your self again, why are you getting so excited over this stupid kid that’s probably gonna put a damper for the only class you like? For the rest of the day your thoughts where occupied trying to imagine what this kid could look like, Terezi said he’s from France but that doesn’t mean anything other than he can probably speak French well. Is that why your teacher seemed so nervous? Maybe she’s afraid of him being better than her, it’s inevitable obviously he’s from fucking France and she’s from Texas. 

The rest of your night is spent doing homework and laundry and cursing your self out for still think about this stupid fucking guy. It was getting to the point that you were annoying yourself, so you do what you always do when you want to leave the outside world, you put a movie on. 

You put on Love Actually, you’ve seen it at least 14 times but it’s just the most accessible movie and since Kankri isn’t home you don’t have to listen to him bitch about the parts with nude people. Your head clears up about 30 minutes into the movie which you are grateful for and you end up having a pretty okay night. You end up falling asleep on the couch.

You wake up with a start, forgetting that you had fallen asleep on the couch, and you check the time only to see that you woke up 10 minutes before your alarm. You are astounded that you managed to fall asleep and even better you slept the whole night. When you stretch your neck cracks in the most uncomfortable way and you regret falling asleep on the couch in an instant. The TV is off so you assume that Kankri is home. Your suspicions are confirmed when you smell bacon, it isn’t uncommon for him to wake up 30 minutes before you to make breakfast, which you appreciate since you are usually late. You stumble into the kitchen rubbing your eyes as you make small talk with him before going upstairs to get changed.

By the time you’re done you’re actually ready on time and have no idea what to do with yourself so you sit on the couch and twiddle your thumbs. You feel a little off and you wonder if your starting to catch a cold, you also feel a little anxious and you feel like you are forgetting something, but you can’t place your finger on it. Before you know it it’s time to make your way to school. It’s staring to get a little colder as the month progresses and you can’t help but feel relieved, you prefer the cold. 

When you get to school you expect to hear the loud obnoxious voices of senior jocks but you are greeted with peace, when you walk into school all the guys that usually make noise are all huddled up and are whispering to each other. What the fuck is going on? Is someone important coming today? There has been a few times where people of ‘importance’ have come to your school but if so that would be a little weird they didn’t even announce it during the announcements. You rattle your brain trying to figure out what the hell is going on. You realize that you haven’t moved in 2 minutes so you make your way to the first class of the day. French.

You’re on autopilot as you walk to your French class, did you miss the memo? Was it paradox space day where everyone has to act different? Did you have to act happy all day? Oh man you couldn’t do that, that would be way to much. Can they even make you act differently? It seems highly implausible that the school would do that. Maybe the jocks got in trouble or some shit, but getting in trouble has never stopped them from being rambunctious before, why are they being so tame and quiet? You stand out side your French class and furrow your brows for what feels like the tenth time today. As you open the door to your French class you find the answer.

Holy fuck.

The exchange student.

You completely forgot that he was coming today, how could you forget?! You thought about him all day yesterday! No matter how much you tried to imagine this douche bag nothing could compare to the way this guy actually looked. 

For one, he’s wearing sunglasses inside, and it’s winter, and the sun isn’t even out. Does he think it makes him look cool? Secondly he’s sitting on a desk in the front of the class with the fucking lights off! The only source of light coming through the blinds that are hardly even open. Looks like your teacher hasn’t gotten to class yet, you’re usually the first one to show up but this fucker didn’t even have the decency to get a fucking chair or turn on the lights! He just decided to sit on the desk, are things really that different in France? You must’ve made a noise similar to a grunt cause he turns towards you and quirks an eyebrow in your direction. With his face towards your you can finally see what this prick looks like. His semi straight semi wavy blonde hair falls in front of his glasses and you can make out splatters of freckles on his noise and cheeks. His skin is tanned and he looks tall and lanky. He’s wearing one of those football coats but it’s clearly not the same football that Americans play since it has a soccer ball on it, you think they call soccer football over in Europe. Great he also plays sports, he’ll probably get along with the jocks. Your eyes fall on his shoes which are just red converse but man are they ever bright, it’s like he went to the store and injected neon red into an already bright pair of shoes. He pulls down his headphones from his head and starts starting at you. Probably cause your staring at him. 

“Don’t sit on the fucking desk, get a god damn chair.” 

Great job Karkat really making a good first impression, wait why do you care again? You don’t! You don’t give a rats ass about what this guy thinks of you, you’re really just trying to pass your classes and get a little good at French. He sits up suddenly looking a little embarrassed and goes to grab a chair. Huh. Maybe it is different in France.

You make your way to the back of the class and take a seat, as you sit down you grab your backpack off your back and start pulling out the shit you need for class. You can’t see him while you rummage through your backpack but you can feel his eyes on you. 

You can’t believe that you forgot that he was coming today and you were so anxious about it yesterday, again asking yourself how the hell did you forget? You thought about him for an entire day and them just magically forgot about him, fuck you wish you had more time to mentally prepare yourself. When you find your binder for French you turn to look at him, only to find that he’s still staring at you with the same expression.

“Can I fucking help you?” Okay maybe your being a little bit of an ass but it’s your self defence tactics, you don’t know this guy, you don’t know what he’s capable of and you’d rather not be seen as weak to some exchange student so yelling it is. 

He opens his mouth like he’s about to answer when suddenly there arehigh pitched squeals coming from the door of the class. A bunch of girls that are in your class and some that aren’t have shown up and are staring to make a scene. You where a little confused before one of them started speaking and walking towards the exchange student. 

“Oh my god! You’re the exchange student you’re so hot!” 

Of fucking course that’s why they’re here, when the principal announced to the class that there was gonna be someone new you saw a few of the girls start squirming in there seats. You chose to ignore it at the time since it just aggravates you that the girls at this school throw themselves on everyone.

Your teacher finally arrives and gets everyone to take their spots and gets the people who aren’t supposed to be in the class to leave. The group of jocks in your class are surprisingly quiet, it looks like they are trying to get a feel for this new kid. Maybe they’ll try and recruit him to be on some sport team. Seems like something he’d like, but hey what do you know? You’re kinda just judging him from what he looks like and that isn’t entirely faire but you did walk in on him sitting on a desk with the lights off. Kinda seems like an ass. 

You’re teacher goes up in front of the class and pauses before speaking. “Good morning everyone we have a new student,” She turns to mystery dude and she actually says something in French, “Veux-tu te présenter?” 

Your teacher speaks in broken French as you would call it. You aren’t entirely sure how she even managed to get a job teaching French since her English accent is so heavy when she speaks it almost sounds like old English. You understand that she’s asking him to introduce himself but the other kids in your class look around at each other with puzzled expressions. Exchange student kid seems to understand too and gets up and makes his way to the front and center of the class before speaking. 

« Salut, je m’appelle Dave Strider. » And with that he takes his seat once again. 

A wave of silence passes over the room before one girl perks up and starts asking questions. 

“Where are you from?” « La France. » you can see the girls gears turning in her head before realizing that all he said was that he was from France. “Where in France?” « Paris. » and with that everyone in the room besides yourself started asking this poor guy questions about himself. 

At least you know his name now. You find it strange and a little amusing that someone in France decided to name their kid Dave, maybe it’s short for something like David but even that is still a pretty English name. Strider also sounds like an English name and your not entirely sure how it would be pronounced in French. Dave doesn’t seem like the talkative type and answers everyone’s questions with maximum 5 words and keeps a straight face the entire time. He probably realized that these numb skulls wouldn’t be able to understand a word he says and usually only nods or shakes his head to answer questions. Everyone’s gathered around his little desk and even your teacher has join into the conversation. You on the other hand have no interest in talking to him so you stare out the window for a good 5 minutes before working on your math homework. Before you know it French class is done and you didn’t even have a lesson, probably for the better. Even with all the conversation and some squealing from the girls in your class it’s the quietest the class has ever been.

You go to your math class next, you dread math more than French cause you actually suck at it but you are relived that Dave isn’t in it. You don’t know what you’d do if for some reason they decided to stick him in all the same classes. It looks like Terezi was right about him only being in your French and English classes. Your still kinda upset about English class but there’s no garenty that he’ll sit next to you or even interact with you so that puts you at ease. Going off of what you saw in class you can say that you judged this guy pretty well, he seemed to have gotten along pretty well with the jocks and seemed to love the attention he was getting from the girls. It’s the typical story of the hot exchange student. Wait did you just say hot? He’s a hot head that’s for sure but not hot. You can appreciate his attractiveness though, but if someone asked you if you thought Dave Strider was hot you’d say no in an instant. He’s not hot! He’s just a hot head with nice hair and dazzling little freckles. Not hot.

Math class happens with nothing much to report on other than getting a test back with you barely passed, but hey! You passed. You make your way to the cafeteria to find Terezi and Sollux. Vriska is sick as hell so she’s not at school, you’re kinda of relived maybe you’ll get in a decent conversation with Terezi without her trying to impress Vriska. 

Like everyday, Terezi waves you down from the far end of the cafeteria to get your attention and like everyday you grumble to yourself about how embarrassing she is. You get your stupid fake cafeteria food before making your way to the table your friends have claimed.

“Karkat! Karkat! You have to tell us about the new kid!” she says in a raspy voice, “I need to know this cool kids name.” You huff at her before starting to speak. 

“His name is Dave Strider and he’s a douche bag.”You say with a sigh.

“How can you judge if he’ths a douche bag if you’ve only known him for theventy minutes?” Sollux asks deadpanning. 

“Sollux I walked into class and this fucker was sitting on a fucking desk with the lights off and his shades were on! Have you seen his shoes?? They are horrendous and super fucking red. Not to mention I heard the music he was listening to and it was just rap but like really shitty rap! And when the teacher told him to introduce himself he said the least words possible! ‘Je m’appelle Dave Strider.’ That was literally all he said before some girl started asking him questions and even then he used maximum 5 fucking words to answer.” 

Sollux and Terezi looked at each other and then look behind you before Terezi bursts into a fit of giggles. 

“What the fuck is funny? I’m not falling for that again, I know there’s nothing behind me and-“ Sollux puts a hand on your mouth and you have half a mind to bite it but before you can finish that thought he’s speaking again. 

“Does he have kinda rounded shades, blond hair, and is wearing a red foot ball jacket?” Your eyes widen, did Sollux have a class with this guy? Then why where they asking you questions about him? 

“What the fuck yeah? How did you know? Have you already met the douche bag?” Sollux quirks his lips a little before removing his hand. “I think that douchebag is staring at you.” You whip your head around in disbelief and sure enough he is staring at you. 

He jerks his head to avoid your gaze even though you can’t make eye contact with him through his shades. He’s sitting at a table with a whole bunch of girls and jocks and he fits the stereotype to a T, he looks right at home with all of them. A bunch of girls are trying to get this attention but it looks like he was too focused on you. You don’t know why your stomach does a flip. His gaze falls on the table in front of him and you let out a breath you didn’t even know you where holding.

“What the fuck? Why was he staring?” you hiss at Sollux.

“Wow Kk you musht have really made a great firsst impression if sthomeone is stharing at you like that. What did you do? Kick him?” 

“No dumbass! I told him to get the fuck off table cause that shits unsanitary and then he was staring at me so I asked him if I could fucking help him!” 

“Stho you basically just yelled at him? Nithce.” At this point you had your head buried in your arms, groaning into them as Sollux continued to mock you for your attitude. It wasn’t your fault that this guy kinda caught you of guard and ended up being insufferable and kinda good looking. But you are not going to dwell on that thought! Nope, nope!

“Karkat! He’s looking at you again.” This time you don’t even bother looking.

“Terezi I really couldn’t give a flying fuck if this douche is looking at me or not, what I’m trying to do is figure out is if he told the football team that I was ‘rude’ to him and if I’m gonna get jumped on my way to English.” 

You haven’t been bullied in a while and you intend on keeping it that way. It was hard for a while since you and the entire football team hate each other and they would come and beat you and shit but then M. English intervened and now you just don’t talk to them. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t look for reasons to bug the shit out of you. If M.Cool kid talked shit about you, they might start teasing you again and you know how fast that can escalate. 

“Kk don’t be thilly, pretty sure the guy doesn’t have anyone to hangout with so he probably just gravitated toward the first people that gave him attention. If you look closthely you can see how uncomfortable he is.”

You turn around to stare at Dave and so do Terezi and Sollux. It doesn’t look like he’s noticed you guys but now that you’re taking a closer look he looks extremely uncomfortable. His body is super tense and it doesn’t look like he’s spoken a word since he’s sat down despite that he’s probably been addressed at least 20 times. His face still wearing the same blank expression that he’s had on all day and you wonder if this kid has ever smiled. Hell, it’s hard enough to get you to smile so maybe not but when you told him to get off the desk you could openly tell that he was embarrassed so maybe he let his guard down. 

Sollux is probably right too, this guy seems like the type to not wanna be labeled a loser on the first day so he probably just picked anyone who gave him attention. You’re all still looking at him when the bell rings and you all watch him jump a little. It’s not obvious to anyone but you three but you only notice cause you’re all openly  
staring at him. 

“Someone’s a little jumpy,” Terezi says bumping Sollux’s arm “reminds me of Kakles.” 

She says looking over at you. “Terezi shut the fuck up.” You make sure there’s no malice in your voice. 

Terezi and Sollux walk you to your English class before both giving you a cheeky grin and wishing you luck. You know the chances of Terezi being wrong are super slim but you are really hoping Dave doesn’t end up being in your class. The last thing you need is another loud obnoxious jock in your favourite class. You’re the first one in the class as usual and Mr. English greats you with a big smile and a wave. 

“Hello there Karkat! How are we doing today?” He says a bit more nervous than usual. Okay weird, he’s usually more energetic and not so...fake? 

“I’m good M. English,” you say taking your seat “how about yo-“ 

M.English openly stiffens up he looks extremely nervous and you can’t figure out why till you follow the direction of his eyes to the door. 

God fucking dammit.

Of course Terezi was right, why wouldn’t she be? She was on the student council, how the hell could she be wrong? Of course he was gonna end up being in your English class. Dave raises a hand towards M. English. He opens his mouth to speak and your not really sure to expect. M. English was always so calm and collected and right now he looks like a wreck.

“Um,” your about to help your poor teacher out before he finally starts to speak “Bonjour, tu t’appelles Dave Strider n’est-ce pas?”

Your jaw drops to the fucking floor.

You’ve never heard M.English speak in French nor could you imagine that that would even be a possibility. He spoke it so flawlessly and didn’t even seem like he was actually trying. Is that why he was so nervous? Maybe he was anticipating using it and was just a little anxious about it. But you aren’t going to speculate. The way he speaks is way better than your French teacher, he had a nice little accent that makes you think that he actually leaned the language before coming to the Texas. Why the hell isn’t he teaching the fucking French class? Hell, even Dave looks a little caught of guard. He probably didn’t expect the fucking English teacher from England to be speaking French to him. 

« Ouais c’est moi ça, le seule et unique, » he does little jazz hands before facing your teacher again. « M.English? » M. English nods and smiles in Dave’s direction. 

That was the first time you’ve ever heard Dave talk for more than five seconds and holy shit the language just rolled of his tongue and it sounded incredible. Even the way he said English was incredible. Your stomach squirms a little but you choose to ignore it in favour of mentally scolding yourself for getting to class early. You wouldn’t have had to deal with this awkward interaction if you had stayed with Terezi and Sollux.

“Est-ce que tu préférais que je te parle anglais ou en français?” M. English asks looking a bit more relaxed than before. God dammit you really can’t get over how well he speaks.

« C’est une class d’anglais, alors l’anglais c’est bon, mais je ne peux pas te garantir que je vais répondre en anglais. » Dave says hovering around the desks at the front of the room. 

You’re surprised that no one else has shown up yet but then you remember that your class are all kinda idiots that are always late. M. English looks like he’s back to himself because he sighs and looks up at Dave with a smile again. 

“Thank god! I don’t know how much longer I could keep up having a full conversation with you chap. It’s been a while since I used my French.” Dave nods and at this point it’s painfully obvious that he wants to sit but is not quite sure where to go. M. English catches on. 

“We have assigned seating in this class since there are a lot of,” his eyebrows furrow for a second before he continues. “young lads that like to cause trouble. One of the ladies in the class has called in sick today so for now you can sit next to my chum Karkat.” 

Your eyes widen as he says your name. Fuck you weren’t paying attention to what he was saying but judging by how Dave just nodded and is heading to sit next to you it’s pretty easy to guess. 

You look at M. English with pleading in your eyes and he just shrugs you off and more students start to flood into the class before you have time to ask to change spots. He probably wouldn’t have even let you move but it was worth asking. You see Dave’s buddies stagger into class. Once they see Dave it looks like they are trying to get his attention but he pulls out his phone and ignores them in favour of sending a text. Unlike your other teacher M. English doesn’t make Dave introduce himself and just starts the class right at 1:45 like always. 

You try to listen to what M. English is saying but you are so distracted by Dave texting that you are only getting every fifth word he’s saying. Dave looks up at you and you don’t have the time to look away before he offers you a little smirk. You think your heart just grew in your chest

Why did it do that? 

He looks at you and then starts typing on his phone probably telling his friends about the fucking loser (being you) staring at him but instead he passes you his phone and you open your eyes wide in disbelief. His phone is opened on notes and there’s writing at the top. 

do you speak French?

You look at him and raise an eyebrow before answering.

YEAH.

He looks at you with what you can only assume are sceptical eyes since you can’t actually see his eyes thanks to his aviators.

why haven’t you spoken it out loud?

Okay your going to admit that your a little fucking agitated. Why is he asking you these questions? Why isn’t he talking to his ‘friends’ and asking them? Hell it’s like the divine beings are trying to make you suffer. Usually you would just tell someone like this to get fucked but for some reason you’re gonna indulge in his little question game. 

CAUSE MY ACCENT IS TERRIBLE AND I DIDN’T FEEL LIKE MAKING AN ASS OUT OF MYSELF TODAY.

This time he doesn’t even looks up before typing another message. 

your names karkat?

You don’t type an answer, all you do is nod and face the front. Well you’ve missed half of what M. English has said but for some reason you really don’t care. Before you can try and figure out why you don’t give a shit about missing your favourite class M.English slaps his hands on his desk.

“Alright everyone now find a partner! The next project will be done in duos.” 

Fuck.

You love M. English more than some of your family but fuck this guy for always making everyone do group projects. It’s like he knows you like to work alone so he makes you work with other students to try and push you out of your comfort zone. You can see Dave looking at you out of the corner of your eye and you take a deep sigh before turning to Dave with a grimace on your face. He does that little smirk again and your heart leaps again but this time agitation over takes the feeling and you put your head in your arms as M. English comes around to mark down the pairs. 

“So Dave old chap! Who will you be partnering up with?” M. English asks. You can tell he already knows. You think he did this on purpose cause the last two assignments have been individual work. Dave tilts his head towards you and M. English smiles. 

“Be careful with this one,” he teases, “he’s feisty and doesn’t like social interaction.” 

All you can do is glare at M.English with wide eyes since you can’t really tell a teacher to fuck off. But seriously how is this a good idea? You’re partner can’t even speak in English, how in the flying fuck are you gonna have any communication between the two of you? Sure, he was okay at writing responses on his phone but you aren’t sure you’d be able to keep that up. Terezi also said something about him failing English at his school so are you gonna have to teach him English too? You’ll probably just end up doing the project by yourself. You doubt that he’ll be any help, football season is almost over and he’ll probably go hangout with his jock friends before he fucking helps you with an English assignment.


	2. A gift from Obama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave’s POV from the first chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning use of the f slur in the middle of the chapter

Oh hell yes.

Hell fucking yes.

Your name is Dave Strider and you knew coming to America was a great idea. Despite the long 8 hour flight with turbulence and a few crying babies, everything here was so fucking sweet. Even the colours were different. Okay you might be exaggerating that, but Houston just has a little bit of an orange tinge in the sky that Paris just doesn’t have and despite it being December it’s hot as hell here. Right now if you were back in Europe you would be freezing your ass off while walking to school. However here in Houston you feel nice and warm.

Waking up this morning was a lot harder than you thought it would be. The time difference threw you off and you ended up falling asleep around 4 am while on call with Rose. Her being the mom friend (and the fact that you guys are actually family) said it was her duty to made sure that you are all safe and shit, even though she’s your cousin you consider her more of a sister than anything. She asked you about your flight and how you did with flying for the first time, and obviously you did great, absolutely no problems. You’re Dave Strider why would you have any problems? 

You are currently having a pleasant dream with Obama, he’s showing you around the White House and you guys are talking about the economy and the differences between North America and Europe, that is until you hear a really strange beeping sound. As soon as your alarm goes off you groan into your pillow, fuck just a few more minutes. You reach for your glasses and squint when you open your eyes, getting only three hours of sleep means that you’ll probably end up falling asleep in one of your classes. You sit up on your bed and stare at the wall for a few minutes feeling tired and unmotivated before hearing a knock on your door, the person behind it opens it up. “Good morning Dave, breakfast is ready whenever you are. But hurry up please cause we have to leave soon.” A voice softer than silk says. You look up to see Ms. Maryam, the lady that was nice enough to host you while you did the exchange program. She’s wearing a long black dress and her hair is nice and done up and it looks like she’s ready for a funeral but you know after listening to her talk for 5 minutes that she works at a hospital taking care of newborn babies. You nod in her direction and she leaves you, closing the door on her way out.

You where told by Ms. Maryam to put an alarm on for 7 am so that you’d have enough time to get ready and eat. Okay that’s the first real difference, back at your school you started class at 9 and you’d usually show up late anyway so you never had to set an alarm, Bro didn’t really care about a perfect attendance or anything. But the vibe you get from Ms. Maryam is very different and you think if you were to skip she’d probably scowl you. However you are really fucking relived to end up with a family like the Maryams. Since you arrived 14 hours ago you’ve learnt a lot about this family not that you’ve tried to but that’s all Ms. Maryam could talk about in the car on your way to her house from the airport while introducing herself. She has two daughters named Porrim and Kanaya, you haven’t had the chance to meet Porrim since she’s in university but Kanaya still lives with her mother, is the same age as you, and attends the same school that you’ll be attending. She seems like a pretty cool person and she even tried to speak French to you, even though it was pretty obvious that she’s never taken a single French class in her life.

See you’ve made it your mission to try and psych as many people out as possible. Before sending in your application form to be an exchange student you put that you can’t speak in English and that your failing it. Both untrue, but none of the teachers bothered to look over the applications before sending them in and here you are now, free trip to America baby! You probably wouldn’t have gotten accepted if you hadn’t done that but no time to dwell on the past you’re here now and you’re fucking ready to live the American dream. You’re pretty sure the Maryams are starting to doubt that you don’t speak in English but even if they found out you don’t think they’d really care, you also kinda feel bad for them cause they don’t really understand French and to keep up your stick you keep writing on napkins in English to communicate with them.

You roll out of bed and get dressed into some comfy yet fashionable clothes. First impressions matter a shit tone. You aren’t too worried about making ‘friends’ since people just tend to gravitate towards you and you’re not even gonna be in America for that long, so in your opinion there’s really no point in getting attached to someone that you will inevitably never see again. You’d consider yourself the popular yet secretive kid at your school. Even though you only have 3 friends, one of them being your cousin you still consider yourself to be pretty known. Hell you’re Dave Strider the coolest kid in year 12 that got excepted into the exchange program even with shitty grades.

You make your way downstairs. The Maryams are definitely on the more wealthy side of Houston and their house is super big compared to your apartment back home. You don’t even have an upstairs and here they are with three floors. When you get downstairs you find Kanaya sitting at the kitchen island with the best posture you’ve ever seen on someone. Jesus this family is fashionable as fuck. Kanaya is wearing a normal black shirt and a red skirt with a giant cloud shaped thing underneath it. You don’t know much about fashion but you know enough to know that someone wouldn’t wear one of those on a normal basis. She turns to you while eating her toast and swallows before allowing herself to speak. “Ah, has my petticoat peaked your interest?” 

You move your hands trying to imitate the thing under her skirt to clarify that she is indeed talking about the white thing and you nod when she picks it up. “It’s simply there to make my skirt more full and ‘flowey’. They are pretty uncommon to wear on a normal outing but I think they add character to skirts.” She explains with a smile. See it’s these types of conversation that make you think that if you had to die for the Maryams you would. They are just so caring and don’t judge you for not knowing something. Kanaya waves you over to the island and she show you the selection for breakfast. There’s honestly more food in this kitchen for breakfast then you’ve seen in the past mouth at your house. Not that’s there’s no food there’s just not four different types of cereals to choose from. Hell yes lucky charms, haven’t had these since you were 8, when John bought some at a gas station for some unknown reason and then proceeded to eat them in the middle of a park. You and Kanaya talk for a little while you eat. It’s mostly just her talking since she can’t really understand French and you aren’t sure if you wanna start using your English just yet. 

You’re surprised when Ms. Maryam drives you and Kanaya to school. It’s not that you’ve never gotten a ride to school, M. Egbert drives you and John when you sleepover to do a project but John doesn’t live as close to your school as Kanaya does to hers. All in all the car ride is two minutes and you guys could have definitely walked, but hey you’re not complaining. You look at the clock and realize that it’s only 7:30 and to your knowledge school starts at 8. You point to the clock in the car from the back seat. Ms. Maryam tells you that Kanaya is apart of some sewing club so she has to be at school 30 minutes before classes actually start. Ms. Maryam makes the suggestion for you to go inside and to get your schedule, she also adds that she has to be at work soon and can’t stay with you till school starts, so you get out of the car and give her a two wave salute before turning around to finally see the school you’ll be attending for the next four months.

It’s a pretty big school with two floors and a huge American football field. Looks like a standard high school, it kinda reminds you of home in a way. Except back home you guys had a giant (you think it’s called it’s called soccer in the U.S) soccer field. After assessing the school you decide that you’ve been standing in one place for too long and make your way to the front entrance. 

There’s a group of guys, about your height which is considered to be tall and they all look like they play American football judging from the coats that they are wearing. They are all huddled up together while they smoke and talk. When you walk by them, one of the looks at you and of course since one of them looked at you all of them have to. You do a sharp wave before leaving to find the office. You’re not sure if your ready to converse with them just yet but if there’s one thing Bro said to you before leaving it was ‘don’t be a loser’, so not being a dick to the popular kids is probably gonna get you a few points on the ‘not a loser board’.

Getting your schedule is fast and simple but the principal seems like an actual sack of potatoes after getting run over by the delivery guy’s truck. That is to say, useless and probably garbage. The first class you have is French which is fucking fantastic. Holy shit you really won’t even have to try at all this is gonna be great, you can probably get away with taking a nap too. If the teachers here are anything like teachers at your school they’ll just ignore the fact that your even there and will not talk to you till after class. At least that’s what happens when there’s an exchange student at your school. You walk around the halls trying desperately to find room 413, you’re kinda glad you got here early in that aspect. After about five minutes of mindless walking, you finally get to your class with 10 minutes to spare. Jeez, maybe you should have asked to wait with Ms.Maryam for a bit longer, even if she did say that she had to leave for work maybe if you wrote it on a napkin extra nice with your nice handwriting she would have said yes. You aren’t entirely sure what you’re supposed to do and it doesn’t look like there’s a teacher anywhere so you decide to just go into the classroom like you would do at school back home.

In the class there are a whole bunch of chairs stacked on top of each other and again you aren’t sure if the chairs are for this class specifically or if they are for another one so you do what you would normally do. Sit on a desk and wait. You don’t turn on the lights or open the shades more then they already are, light sensitivity is a pain in the ass, so being in the dark with your shades on is nice. You don’t really know what to do with yourself while you wait for other students so you put on some sick beats that John and Jade made for you ironically last Christmas. Jokes on those two, you listened to the songs they made you the entire trip here and you don’t intend on stopping anytime soon. 

You scratch the back of your neck and in doing so you knock your headphones off of your ear a little just in time to hear a grunting noise from behind you. It kinda catches you off guard a little, but nothing you can’t quickly recover from, that is t’ill you see the source of the noise.

Holy fuck.

He’s gorgeous.

You think you must be dreaming and Obama has just gifted you an angel. In front of you stands a short and kinda chubby kid with tanned skin and really fucking curly hair. His expression twists into a scowl when he sees you but you can’t help but just stare in awe. He’s absolutely stunning, you’ve never felt like this. Sure you’ve liked dudes before, John Egbert being the first one and was definitely not the last one, but you’ve never been attached to someone without knowing anything about them. This is so fucking weird. Why is this happening? You’re Dave fucking Strider and you cannot get a crush on the first fucking day of your exchange program. But the way his hair falls in front of his eyes and the fact that his brown eyes light up the room even though your shades are on and it’s dark as hell makes your heart start beating really fast. Finally you pull down your headphones but you’re still in a daze before you realize it he’s actually speaking to you.

“Don’t sit on the fucking desk, get a god damn chair.”

Okay first of all his voice is definitely not what you imagined, you thought it might be a little softer but it’s still endearing as fuck. Second of all maybe in American it’s not normal sit on the desks while waiting for the teacher. Shit, you probably looked like an ass, as you get off the desk you can feel your cheeks heating up. You mentally scold yourself cause Striders don’t get embarrassed or blush and you just did both things at the same time. When you get your chair you turn around to find him sitting at the back of the class and you immediately regret not taking a seat at the back, it would be a little weird now if you decide to change seats all of a sudden so instead you occupy yourself by watching him take stuff out of his backpack. His eyes are so calming and now that he’s turned on the lights in the room you can see them so much better. He has little freckles on the upper parts of his cheeks and eye bags that could probably hold his tears if he cried. Part of you is super chill about this but the other part of you is freaking the fuck out cause you’ve never had emotions like this for someone you don’t know. This kid just changed the fucking game, you don’t even know his god damn name but he’s all that’s occupying your thoughts and you keep tracing him with your eyes like your trying to make your brain take a picture just in case you’ll never get to see him again.

He looks really deep in thought, he’s still frowning but it’s loosened up since he’s taken a seat. You wonder what he’s thinking about that’s making him frown so much, probably something stupid. You wonder if Kanaya knows this kid and if they are friends, or acquaintances at least. Oh fuck, he’s looking at you again and he still looks pissed as hell, and now he’s talking to you, great, okay.

“Can I fucking help you?”

You wanna say ‘yes actually you can, please give me your name and number’ in true Strider nature, Bro would be so proud of you for that, it would be slick and easy. You go to answer him, you really do, but when you open your mouth your stomach fills with butterflies and nothing comes out. He looks over at the door with a disgusted look on his face and then you hear high pitch squeals. You almost think it’s you that made them but then you turn your head to the door and see seven girls who look like they’ve just met a celebrity.

“Oh my god! You’re the exchange student you’re so hot!”

You can’t say that your not flattered but right now you are not interested in girls who look like they would date anyone they’d meet. You give them a little wave still keeping the blank expression on your face before they start giggling amongst themselves and a few of them start swooning. Girls at your school do this all the time to people like Eridan (some rich prick that you happen to have in all your classes) but it’s never happened to you before and it honestly feels a little weird. Sure you’ve talked to girls before but not at this velocity. You wonder how these girls would react if they found out you collect dead things. Before they have the chance to make their way to your desk the (you’re assuming) teacher shows up and makes the girls who aren’t in this French class leave. You’re super relieved to not have to talk to them. You’re sure they are nice but your attention is on the crabby kid in the back. Before you can even try to resume your conversation with him the class falls silent and the teachers starts to speak. At first she’s speaking English, you know that for sure and then you think she starts speaking French? If it’s French then it sounds outright horrendous, if anyone of your other teachers where here they would tear her to shreds and probably make her cry over the fact that her pronunciation is so bad. You realize that you’ve been mumbling under your breath, not enough for anyone to hear but enough that you were distracted and now you think that she is asking you to present yourself? Okay, chill you can do that. 

«Salut, je m’appelle Dave Strider. »

Fucking nailed it.

Short and sweet, makes the crowd want more. You take your seat again and the teacher stares at you. Like really looks into your soul as if she’s trying to see how many red and white blood cells you have and you stare back, you wonder if they do the whole ‘my favourite colour is red and I like music’ thing at this school, cause judging by the look she’s giving you she doesn’t look very pleased with your introduction. It’s silent for a good 30 seconds before some girl that sits in the middle of the class asks you where you’re from, it was one of the girls that was giggling when you waved to the group of them. When you tell her that you’re from France,she give you the most puzzled expression and you bite the inside of your cheek trying not to laugh. It’s laughable that you guys are literally in a French class and this girl doesn’t know what France means, when she finally gets it she’s asks you where in France you’re from and obviously you respond with Paris. You had no idea that that would cause a domino effect of questions, everyone in the classroom had gathered around your little desk and all of a sudden you felt a little overwhelmed. Going from talking to 3 people on a daily basis to talking to 20 in the spend of a day was something you weren’t really prepared for. You do your best to answer the questions thrown your way with maximum five words. First of all you don’t think that anyone would be able to understand what your saying considering how the first girl responded when you said France and you don’t wanna give out too much information about yourself. Striders are alway secretive.

You kinda expected the kid from before to come over and join the conversation but as you scan the class to find him you spot him sitting at his desk staring out the window. He doesn’t have a look of disgust on his face like the few other times you’ve looked at him, it’s a look of peace. You wish he would come over, he doesn’t look like the rest of the people in your class, he’s different, not cookie cutter, you can tell just by looking at him and hell you’d kill to talk to someone that isn’t basic like the rest of these people seem to be. The fact that he’s not asking questions to you right now just proves that he doesn’t give a fuck about what other people are doing. You try not to get distracted with this kid but it’s kinda hard to do when he’s sitting like 8ft from you. A bunch of guys that you recognize from this morning start talking to you about sports, you can see why they are asking you since your wearing a soccer jacket but you’re only wearing the jacket for the irony of it. You fucking hate sports and the jacket is actually Jade’s, she lent it to you when you told her you didn’t have a wind breaker and it fit really well so of course you took it with you on your trip. It’s also a part of your comfy yet fashionable wardrobe. The guys tell you you should try out for the soccer team at the school, which you quickly deny by simply saying that you won’t be at the school long enough, the teacher had to translate what you said to them. Hey, they never asked you if you could play they just assumed, that is completely on them.

When you hear the bell ring a wave of relief passes over your shoulders, the next class you have is music which is again fucking fantastic. You really hope that the kid that sits in the back of class has it too, you wanna show him the Strider charm and get him to at least give you his name. Just as your about to walk out of class you feel a hand on your shoulder and you nearly go into strife mode, you realize very quickly that a strife is not what’s happening right now and let your limbs go numb before turning around, half hoping it’s the guy that sits at the back, half hoping it’s not. Oh, it’s just the football guys.

“Dude come eat with us at lunch, we have a whole bunch of chicks that sit with us. It’ll be super fun.”

Okay you were definitely not expecting that. You were just gonna go eat outside or in the bathroom or something, skipping class was also an option that seemed plausible but if Ms. Maryam were to find out you are positive that she’d beat your ass. These guys didn’t seem to bad maybe they are super chill and the thing that Bro said to you before leaving about not being a loser rattles in your brain. You agree to sit with them even though your stomach feels like you just swallowed a peach pit.

Music was kinda boring, kids in your class are not on the same level as you which meant there was a lot of waiting around for the students to catch up and the crabby kid was not in your class. Kanaya was in there though so you felt a little less uncomfortable, she’s surprisingly good at playing the flute. When you walk into the cafeteria you’re greeted with a whole bunch of people trying to talk to you while leading you to a table. You’re sitting right in the middle of a bunch of sweaty guys who look like they’ve just gotten out of gym class, your getting second hand sweat from just looking at them. A lot of people try to talk to you but you either respond with a shrug or a nod, the people around the table are fascinating that you can ‘only’ speak French. You’re poking at the food that some girls brought to you but when the cafeteria doors open with a little more force then all the other times your eyes go immediately to them. 

There he is, just standing there. You could technically go up to talk to him but something in the back of your head tells you that you’re better off just staying put for now. His eyes narrow as he looks forward and he almost looks a little embarrassed. When you follow his gaze you see girl with a shit ton of bracelets on and a crap ton of colours on her clothes. Your assuming it’s his one of his friends cause when you look back at him he’s taking some food and making his way over to her. He looks a bit grumpy making his way over to his friends then you notice his terrible posture as he walks and your heart does something in your chest again cause he just looks so safe to be around.

When he finally sits down, his friend with all the colours looks like she starts asking him a bunch of questions cause he looks a little irritated. You try not to focus on him and talk to the people around you but your eyes keep going back to him. He’s doing all these wild hand jesters while he’s talking and even though your facing his back you can just imagine the look on his face. His friends both look at each other and then their eyes land on you and then the girl starts laughing. You almost think that they where laughing at you for a second but then they go back to having a conversation except that one of crabby kid’s friends has a hand over crabby kid’s mouth. He seems like the type of person to bite someone and you half expect him too. For the second time today you bite the inside of your cheek to mask a smile. That moment is short lived though because crabby kid whips his head around faster than a god damn Ferris wheel and is now openly staring at you with his two friends. His two friends look like they are having the time of their life and you jerk your gaze away from him so it doesn’t look like your looking at him. You know that he can’t see your eyes behind your sunglasses so he has absolutely no proof that you where staring at him. 

A few jocks must see him staring at you because the topic of their snarky comments seem to be him. You don’t say anything to them until one of them adresses you. “Is Vantas giving you trouble? That fag is so fucking annoying and doesn’t know his place.” 

This is the most in a day that your neutral expression has almost broke. You resist the urge to punch the fucking shit out of these fucking assholes and tell them that they don’t know their place. Instead you just shake your head and respond with no, though these guys do not look satisfied at all with your answer.

“Are you sure? Cause we can beat his ass for you. We know it’s your first day but that kid has it coming, he’s a fucking dick.” 

You don’t even answer at this point, this is getting fucking ridiculous. You can guarantee that Vantas (Probably his last name) did jack shit to these guys. First of all he’s like 5’5 and most of these guys are like 6’1 and they are much fucking broader than he is. In fact it was probably the other way around and just thinking about that is making your blood fucking boil, again for like the fifth time, you don’t know him why are you getting so mad? For all you know he could be a massive fucking dick, with a shitty personality, but get the feeling that he’s not. You’re so lost in your thoughts that you actually jump when the bell rings, luckily you don’t think anyone notices. Before you leave a few guys pull you aside and ask what class you have next to which you respond English, but in French. Lucky most of them understand what you said and tell you about the English teacher. You’ve only known these bozos for 3 hours so you don’t really believe the things they say about the English teacher but at the same time they have been going to the school longer. You nod your head pretending to agree with them. English class is much easier to find then French class but you take a detour so you don’t have to walk with the assholes. 

Standing in the entrance of a classroom while two people stare you down is not how you thought the beginning of English class would go. The jocks told you that the English teacher was a shitty teacher and there was no fun in his class, also that he has an English accent, which is apparently hard to understand. This coming from people who didn’t know what «La France» meant . You realize who the two people in front of you are. Your assuming that the big bulky dude is your English teacher, who’s name is M.English which is funny as fuck and the other is him. Wait.

Hell yes.

Hell fucking yes!

This means he’s also in your English class. You have two different times to woo him with your Strider charm. You realize that you’ve been just standing in the doorway so you raise a hand to English man to let him known that you’ve at least acknowledged him. He opens his mouth and all that comes out is “Um”. 

You’re about to wave him off, letting him know that he doesn’t need to try and communicate with you but before you have the chance he’s speaking to you in perfect French. 

Wow. Okay you did not expect him of all people to speak that well.

You’re a little stunned, you really expected everyone here to speak like the French teacher, but this guy sounded like he learnt his French in Belgium. You’ve only been there twice, both times for an end of the year school trip and even though the French there isn’t that different you can definitely tell. It looks like Vantas is a little caught off guard about him speaking French too, considering his mouth is hanging open.

Obviously you answer with saying that your the one and only, you’re Dave Strider one of a kind. You also confirm that his name is in fact M.English and of course it is. This guy is a fucking riot. He also asks you if you would prefer him to speak in French or in English to you. Well shit, you aren’t gonna make this man change his plans just cause you don’t wanna speak in English. You tell him that English is fine and you try not to crack a smile when he starts speaking with a fancy accent. You’re hoping it’s obvious that you wanna sit down, you’re just kinda hovering over the desks while you wait for him to stop talking. Finally he notices. 

“We have assigned seating in this class since there are a lot of,” his eyebrows furrow for a second before he continues. “young lads that like to cause trouble. One of the ladies in the class has called in sick today so for now you can sit next to my chum Karkat.” 

Your assuming that the young lads that he’s talking about are the guys you sat with at lunch but your heart thumps when you see that Vantas is the only one in the room. M. English didn’t say Vantas though he said Karkat, doesn’t matter you’ll ask him what his name is later. You make your way over to the desk right beside him, as soon as you sit down a shit tone of kids start to make their way into class. The ‘asshole gang’ are in this class too, you see them trying to get your attention but you take out for phone to send a text to the group chat you have with John, Jade, and Rose. M.English, thankful, doesn’t make you present yourself to the class and just starts the lesson when everyone has arrived. Since he knows you ‘can’t’ speak English you don’t think he’ll mind if you just fuck around on your phone till the class ends. When you get back to the group chat Jade and Rose are having a heated conversation about god knows what. You go to look up at Karkat discreetly to find that he’s already staring at you. You can’t suppress your smirk this time and you swear that you see his cheeks heat up when he sees it. This is your chance. You stare at him for a solid ten seconds before returning to your phone and opening up Notes. You pass your phone to Karkat who looks shocked.

do you speak French?

Karkat looks at you with suspicious brows. It wasn’t that deep of a question. 

YEAH.

You feel your heart skip a beat. Hell yes, maybe you can actually have a conversation with him, but he might also be as bad as the other people at this school.

why haven’t you spoken it out loud?

Oops he looks a little pissed now, maybe it’s a touchy subject? Why would it be though?

CAUSE MY ACCENT IS TERRIBLE AND I DIDN’T FEEL LIKE MAKING AN ASS OUT OF MYSELF TODAY.

If his accent is actually as bad as he claims at least he has some self awareness unlike everyone else here. You don’t bother looking up at him before typing out your next message. 

your names karkat? 

He nods and you feel a little victorious. Karkat Vantas. A cool name for a cool guy. He turns his head to listen to the teacher again and you get the feeling that he’s only half listening, you continue to stare at him before you’re snapped out of your thoughts with a loud slap.

“Alright everyone now find a partner! The next project will be done in duos.” 

Your day just when from amazing to fucking extraordinary. Not only did you get a cute guy to give you his name but now you might be working with him on a project. You don’t wanna jump the gun but it doesn’t look like anybody is circling around Karkat’s desk trying to be his partner and no one has come up to you yet and let’s be honest you don’t think they will, since they are under the impression that you cannot speak English and this is an English project. Karkat looks pissed as fuck though and it’s kinda funny to watch his nose scrunch up in disgust while eyeing M. English. Karkat turns to you with a giant sigh and the same grimace he was giving your teacher. You smirk again and Karkat buries his head in his arms. From that exchange your under the impression that you and Karkat are partners and when M.English comes over and marks you two down it’s official.

“Be careful with this one,” he teases, “he’s feisty and doesn’t like social interaction.” 

You’ve never seen anyone say fuck your with their eyes the way that Karkat is right now. Joy overtakes you and without knowing you start bouncing your leg up and down. You really have no idea what’s gotten into you today but you are just so god damn excited about being Karkats partner, you don’t expect anything big to happen, if anything he’ll probably get annoyed with you and he might just do the project himself, you kinda hope that doesn’t happen. You’ll try and make contributions and shit but your still a Strider at heart so school work isn’t really something that you guys do. But you’ll do it I’d that means spending time with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New year!! Thank you for all the support too!! <3
> 
> I got 4000 words in and then decided I hated it and then rewrote the entire chapter
> 
> Also school is starting up again so updates might take a little longer and as always if you see grammar mistakes just ignore them lol


	3. Imagine being Bilingual and Bisexual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Are Karkat and Dave finally gonna start doing their English project? We shall see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Karkat’s POV and the translation is at the end. 
> 
> School is an absolute pain in the ass but I’m gonna try and update once a week. Again as always please ignore any grammar mistakes

You’re name is Karkat Vantas. It’s been a week since Dave Strider exchanged to your school and during that week your main goal has been to avoid him as much as possible. Ever since M. English joyfully announced that your stupid research paper required a partner you’ve been in such a pissy mood that even Kankri has told you to shut up, and usually he listens to you when you rant. He told you that it might be a good chance to ‘make a new friend’ but you aren’t in kindergarten anymore, you already have friends, Terezi and Sollux, you don’t need another one and you don’t need someone like Dave Strider. Just as you predicted he did end up going to some football games and the only reason you know is cause you were at them too, not to watch football of course but because Terezi is in band, but you saw him surrounded by girls on the bleachers and despite what Sollux said about him being uncomfortable the first time he was surrounded by jocks and girls he sure as hell looked comfortable now. 

You guys haven’t even started your project yet and it’s due in 2 weeks. It’s a research paper about poets and shit and it requires a lot of information since the word count has to be 20,000 words minimum. M. English isn’t very strict about deadlines but you rather just get this whole ordeal done with sooner than later so it doesn’t put a damper in your mood every time you have to think about homework. Its gonna be a long ass project because M.English might not be strict about deadlines but he sure as hell is for word counts. It’s not like it’s entirely your fault though that you haven’t talked to Dave. You have class with him on Monday and Thursday and both days he was absent, you’ve seen him in the halls a couple of times and at the football game on the weekend but it’s impractical to talk to him outside of class. You doubt that he would listen to you, next time you see him you’re just gonna tell him to forget the project and that you’ll do it alone.

Today is a Friday and just like every Friday you have absolutely no plans. Well that’s not entirely true since last Friday you and Sollux went to watch Terezi smash 2 cymbals together for an hour. Vriska is throwing a party tonight and you are invited but you aren’t really interested in watching your friends get shit faced and you yourself aren’t interested in that either. You could sit around and read or try to write something but you’ll probably just end up watching a movie. Kankri is not usually home on Friday nights, (he has a social club or something?) so you’ll be able watch something a little more inappropriate.

‘Jesus you’re 17 you shouldn’t have to wait for your brother to be out of the house before watching a movie that’s rated R.’ You think to yourself.

You are currently in your last class for the day which is history. Usually people in this class are tolerable but today everyone seems like they just wanna get the fuck out of here and no one is really paying attention at all. You can’t blame them, you wanna leave too and you’ve been zoning out the entire class thinking about your stupid English project. You wanna just tell Dave to forget about it, you really do, and you probably will, but M. English made you promise that you wouldn’t and that you would at least give Dave a chance. Good thing you’re great at lying cause you are not doing a project in duos. It’s not even the fact that Dave’s your partner, it’s the fact that you have a partner at all. When you’re in partners you don’t have the control over the project that you would have if you were alone and you also usually take over the role as leader, which a lot of people don’t like. You’ll also have to listen to his ideas and not just fuck around till you find a good subject. You don’t even know why M. English wants him to help you so badly, he can’t even speak in English!

That’s another problem, the language barrier. Sure he can write on a paper or type on his phone but it’s just gonna make the process so much harder. At least you know that he understands English. You could always speak to him in French, that probably what a normal person would do but you are far to self conscious for that. You saw the way he started mumbling when your French teacher started talking, you didn’t understand why at first until you got home and thought about your day and the only plausible answer that you came up with was that he was talking shit about her. And that’s the exact reason you sit at the back of the class, cause you talk shit like that too.

Your history teacher announces that she’s finished the lesson for the day, there are still a few minutes left and you guys aren’t aloud to leave before the bell so you pull out a book that you’ve been trying to read for the past couple of weeks. Tavros bought it for you for your birthday, you really expected it to be a happy go lucky kinda book but it’s depressing as fuck. You’re guessing Tavros just saw the cover and thought it was cool cause you can’t imagine him reading the summary and thinking that this is a good book.It’s just so heavy right from the start and there’s no joy in it and the main character is an asshole and not relatable at all. He’s trying to make this girl fall in love with him and she’s rejected him like 90 times at this point, but he’s becoming more sexist and misogynistic the more you read. He thinks that girls belong in the kitchen and for the fifth time since you’ve gotten this book you check when it was printed. Yep sure enough it was printed this year, nice.

There’s a knock on the door and your teacher answers it before turning to the class.

“Vantas someone is here to see you.”

This isn’t uncommon, sometimes Nepeta gets really overwhelmed and when she can’t find Equius fast enough she comes to find you. However, usually it’s in the middle of the day not at the end. You get up and push your chair, trying not to make any sound to annoy your already annoyed class. Before you even close the door you’re speaking.

“Nepeta are you okay? What happen-“

That’s not Nepeta.

In front of you stands Dave Strider, looking smug as fuck as he leans on some lockers. Even though he’s slouched he’s still so much fucking taller than you are and you never realized how fucking tall he is until right this very moment. Your mouth goes dry. It’s not like he’s gonna beat you up he literally has no reason to do that, then what the fuck could he want?

“What do you want?” You say with a little more bite than intended. He’s standing up straight now and walking towards you. How the hell did he get out of class early? Teachers here are pretty strict about getting out of class early cause of a vandalization incident a couple years ago.

«T’as dit que tu parles le français? »

You nod. Yes you told him you spoke French the last time you guys had an interaction, dumbass should have just looked in his notes. “Yes I fucking do what about it?”

«Ben je pensais qu’on pourrait faire notre projet aujourd’hui si t’es pas occupé.» He raises a brow in your direction. You can’t focus on anything other then the way he’s speaking and you almost miss that he’s kinda asking you a question. What does speaking French have to do with the project? He wants to do the project? Tonight? You aren’t friends with the jocks but Vriska definitely is and they are for sure going to her party, doesn’t he wanna go? Wait he’s actually gonna do the project with you? Jesus Christ, France must be super different if he’s ditching a party to do an English project that isn’t even worth a quarter of his grade with a loser like you.

“You know there’s a party tonight right? Are you seriously not gonna go just because of a fucking English project?” You should be happy that he wants to do the project with you but in your head you where already gonna do it by yourself. Also every time he’s around you get really sweaty for some reason and your heart start beating fast and it’s so fucking annoying. It’s cause you find him insufferable that’s why your body reacts that way.

« Est-ce que tu vas aller? » he asks with the same dull expression as every other time you’ve seen him.

“Are you fucking kidding? Hell no, the jocks are gonna be there and I’m not particularly interested in watching my friends get wasted.” His lips quirk up a little when you say ‘no’ but then you watch him force them back down. You would have not noticed that if it weren’t for the the fact that you guys are in such close proximity. Did he wanna spend time with you? What the hell?

« Alors c’est réglé, tu viens chez moi ce soir. »

“WHAT?”

Oh hell no you are not going to his house. Even though you guys aren’t completely strangers you do not trust this guy enough to be alone with him at his own house. This might be your paranoia acting up but this could also be a trap that the jocks set up with him just to catch you of guard. Where does he even live? He can’t have a house of his own so he must be staying with one of the students that comes here. But who? Is it someone you hate? Maybe that’s how he became all buddy buddy with the jocks so fast, maybe it’s one of them. 

«Quoi?»

“First all of I hardly know you! We met like a week ago and have talked once through notes on your fucking phone! Second of all I don’t even know where you live and who you live with! I literally do not trust you at all when we are at school how the hell am I gonna trust you enough to be alone with you?” You see him frown a little bit.

«Kanaya Maryam.» You stare at him for a second before it clicks. Kanaya Maryam you have her in business and in math. She’s very smart, super elegant, and very fashionable. She’s won so many fucking awards for organizing the sewing club at your school and she’s on the debate team. You know that her and Vriska used to be super close but apparently since sophomore year they haven’t really been friends. She’s also extremely pretty and you’re really surprised that more guys aren’t trying to get her number, but you have a sneaky suspicion that she isn’t into boys. Finally something else clicks.

“You’re staying with Kanaya Maryam, like at the big fancy house that her mom owns?” Dave simply nods.

It can’t be that bad if you go, right? You do really wanna get this project done, after you get it done you’ll never have to talk to Dave ever again, besides he’s gonna leave in a few mouths anyway. You also feel way more comfortable knowing that Kanaya is gonna also be at the house, even though you’ve never really talked to her the few encounters you’ve had with her have always been pleasant and she actually knows how to deal with your temper in class. You also know that she would never allow Dave to hurt you especially not at her own place. 

“Fuck, fine. I’ll come to your house, how the fuck am I supposed to get there though?”

« On marche. »

Seems simply enough, you already walk to school anyway and your house is pretty far you can’t imagine Kanaya’s being any further. All of a sudden your stomach starts to feel a little queasy, not like throw up but it feels like there are butterflies coming to life in there and you push them down as much as possible. You are not getting excited about going to the house that Dave is staying at. The butterflies are there as a result to you being nervous not excited. Right?  
The bell rings and you are snapped out of your thoughts, you go back into class to get your stuff and your teacher gives you a look which you return with a glare. Not many teachers like you so you don’t make an effort to like them. 

When you get back outside the class you expect to just see Dave, but of course girls and members of the football team have come to talk to him. He’s leaning against the lockers again and you recognize a few of the girls trying to talk to him, he still has the same god damn blank face that he always has. You’ve never really seen any other emotions on Dave other then that one (can you even call that an emotion?) he just seems bored most of the time. Well there was that one time when he was embarrassed so at least you know that he’s capable of other emotions. You start to make your way towards the back doors, you aren’t going to bother Dave while he flirts with girls, if he’s serious about doing the project with you then he’ll follow you. When you walk past him he gets up rather swiftly, while ignoring the people talking to him and rushes to your side. You honestly thought he was gonna stay and talk to the people that had circled him for longer or just forget about you in general and dip but he’s actually walking faster than you now, legs going into long striders as he makes his way down the hallway while people yell at him for ignoring them. 

“You know people are talking to you right? Why the hell are you ignoring them?” He shrugs. God he’s such an asshole.

When you get outside the yelling from other students are quickly gone due to the fact that the door to the outside is unnecessarily heavy. You send a quick text to Kankri to let him know that you won’t be home till later and you also tell Sollux cause you guys usually walk home together. He laughs at you for actually going to Strider’s house and for being such a sucker. A sucker for what? You have no idea. 

Kanaya’s house is in the opposite direction then yours, closer to the outskirts of town, which makes sense since that’s where all the rich people live. Both of you don’t talk the rest of the way, you still have this lingering feeling that Dave’s gonna end up leading you to the jocks, you really can’t trust him, but for some reason you do? The silence is a little awkward but also tolerable for you, on the other hand Dave keeps opening his mouth and closing it again like he wants to say something. You have no idea how far Kanaya’s house is and you definitely do not wanna be the one to break the silence that’s happening right now. After a few minutes of walking you get to the stop lights that will officially lead you guys into the rich part of Houston. While waiting for the stupid lights to turn red you hear someone calls out Dave’s name, at first you thought you imagined it but you kept hearing it.You turn around to find Kanaya. She’s dressed up like always and she’s carrying herself with confidence. Even if she’s only walking down the sidewalk it looks like she’s ready for a god damn fashion show.

“Dave, I’ve been looking for you. Next time tell me if you’re gonna walk home alone so I don’t wait for you- oh Karkat what a lovely surprise!” 

You give her a little wave. 

“You didn’t tell me that you and Karkat are friends.” She looks a little confused, almost like she thinks that Dave is an open book that tells everyone everything. He shrugs.

“We aren’t friends,” you sigh into your sweater “we just have a stupid English project to do in partners. And we just happen to be partners.”

“Well isn’t that lovely! Are you guys going to Vriska’s party after?” Kanaya asks with innocence. You’re assuming she doesn’t know about the fact that the jocks harass you sometimes. You shake your head and the light turns red.

Kanaya offers more than just silence and actually talks about her day and her classes. You notice that sometimes she tries to slip little French words in while she’s talking, though it’s pretty obvious she doesn’t know the language too well. Dave doesn’t talk much, you can’t blame him since it doesn’t look like Kanaya understands when he does. You usually just add small remarks to Kanaya’s stories. You’ve never really had a conversation with her outside of class but it’s pretty obvious why she’s considered popular, she’s really nice and knows how to make conversation.

“All I’m saying is that the principal could be a little more organized.” She says with a tiny bit of anger in her voice.

“He’s literally a bag of dog shit, he does absolutely nothing and when he does do something it’s usually something so insignificant!” You’re practically yelling.

“Agreed,” Kanaya says before lifting up her head up. “We’re here.”

Kanaya’s house is big, not mansion big, but you could probably host a small wedding in it. It’s right in the middle of a subdivision where all the houses look exactly the same, Kanaya’s house on the other hand has a whole bunch of flowers out front and has 2 lovely apple trees. God even rich people grew their own food. You suddenly feel a little embarrassed about your little town house, you make a vow right then and there that you will never let Kanaya see it, even though you know she won’t judge you. Probably. The walk was actually a lot shorter than expected, about 10 minutes, probably would have been 7 of you guys didn’t manage to miss every walk signal. When you walk into Kanaya’s house there is a huge shift in the atmosphere and all of a sudden you feel super relaxed. The walls are a nice shade of gray and green and the furniture is black. You’d say that the outside of the house was a little deceiving, cause it’s definitely bigger on the inside then the outside made it look. 

You kick your shoes to the side and you can feel Dave’s eyes on you again. So weird how you can feel them yet you’ve never seen them before, you have too ask about that. How is it that he got past the dress code? Kanaya is gone when you look up and you assume that she has stuff to do, you where really hoping that she would stay a little longer. Even though you hardly know Kanaya you trust her way more then Dave. Dave signals you to follow him and you do, you aren’t quite sure why you follow him but your paranoia is getting lower now that you know he isn’t leading you to an abandoned house. He brings you upstairs, it takes at least 15 seconds to walk up the stairs and when you get on the main flight he’s leading you down the hall. Jesus Christ this house is huge!

He opens the door and lets you into a small room with only a bed and a night table. There’s a suitcase on the ground along with a pile of clothes and discarded papers everywhere. You’re assuming it’s his room, you recognize some of the clothing on the ground to be his and there’s no way Kanaya wouldn’t have a sewing machine in her room. 

“Casa de Strider” he says making jazz hands in your direction.

You snort, “So you speak Spanish now?

He shrugs with a smirk, the same one he gave you in English when he caught you staring, you go light headed for a second before realizing that you came here to actually do something, not pass out.

“How the fuck are we gonna do this project? You don’t speak English, there’s no way in hell I’m speaking French an-“

«Pourquoi?»

You click your tongue. “I told you before, I don’t feel like making a complete ass out of myself in front of someone who is so much better at the language then I am. Okay that came out wrong I don’t feel inferior to you in any way, but you probably won’t understand what the fuck I’m trying to say anyway. It’s like if I asked you to start speaking English when you clearly can’t.”

«Who says I can’t speak English?»

What 

The

Fuck

Your mouth drops to the fucking floor. No hint of an accent, no hesitation, just perfect English spoken by someone who apparently can’t speak in English. 

“Strider you’re gonna have to repeat that I think I hit my head and missed what you said.”

He starts laughing his ass off, like really laughing, you don’t think you’ve ever seen anyone laugh so hard in your life. Not even Vriska when Tavros yells at her for making fun of his slap poetry, not even Terezi when she’s clearly out smarted someone, not even Sollux when you do something stupid. This kid really went from having no emotion at all to almost pissing on the fucking floor from laughing to hard. This goes on for another 2 minutes and you’re just trying to figure out what the fuck just happened. Okay so recap. Dave Strider, a senior that is appart of an exchange program comes from Paris, France to Houston, Texas. He cannot speak in English and has made it very clear that his language setting is only French. He gets put in an English class so he can learn the language and hardly speaks to anyone because of set language barrier. That Dave Strider, the same one, just spoke perfect English to you and is now dying of laughter on his floor. You feel like he’s laughing at your expense, like somehow you were just supposed to know that he was lying or maybe he’s not even lying, maybe he didn’t actually speak in English and you imagined the whole thing and now he’s laughing at you for being an idiot. After a while he calms down and wipes a fake tear from under his shades and just smiles at you. 

“You gonna explain what the actual fuck just happened or am I gonna have to figure it out?” 

He gives one final giggle that makes your heart rate speed up and falls onto his bed. 

«Oh man your face was absolutely priceless I couldn’t help myself, I knew I waited the right amount of time before unleashing the full Strider experience. You looked like you had just seen a dog eating a person with how wide yours eyes were, like they were just waiting to fucking fall out of your head like two little pebbles at the top of a waterfall in the middle of South America. I mean they didn’t fall which is good cause unlike my cousin I would have no idea what to do if they did actually fall out. I mean i know how to give someone stitches but I don’t think you can do that with eyes, once there gone they are gone for fucking good. One time I saw this movie with my friend John and oh man I wa-»

“Holy fuck you talk a lot, are you gonna explain how all of a sudden you can just speak in English?” He lifts an eyebrow and gives you another little smirk. This ones a little different from the other ones he’s given you though, a little mischievous.

«You can’t tell anyone, if I tell you okay?» 

“Uh...okay?” Holy shit is this like some big huge secret? Why is he telling you? You kinda wish you could go back to five minutes ago when to your knowledge he could only speak French.

«Okay so obviously you now know I can speak in English, I know, imagine being bilingual, it’s sweet as hell. I really wanted to come to America and I knew this would be my last chance before becoming an ‘adult’ to actually do something like this, so on my student profile I put that I only spoke French so that your school might take pity on me and let me come. Cause I’ll let you in on a little secret, my grades are complete fucking ass dude and there is no way your school would have picked me. Oh yea also the teachers at my school do not give a shit so they didn’t even check any of the students profiles before sending them. So when I came here I swore to myself that I would only speak in French till I found the right moment to use my full vocabulary, for the sake of irony. I think the Maryams are a little suspicious of me though cause Ms. Maryam always looks at me with knowing eyes when i write on napkins. Kinda weirds me out man, probably gonna tell them soon, I can’t keep lying to them, they are way too nice.»

Dave was speaking so fast that he’s panting, just trying to get some oxygen in his lungs and you can’t even begin to express your confusion. So this little shit could speak English the entire fucking time but “for the sake of irony” he didn’t?! Well the other points he made about not ever being able to do an exchange program after high school make sense too but you had never even considered it to be a possibility that he could be faking. It just seemed like something that was actually plausible, you don’t think it’s mandatory to lean English in France so him not being able to speak it just made sense. 

“Why did you decide to talk to me in English? Why not someone you’re friends with, like the jock? Or even Kanaya? I saw her on the way home from school trying really hard to speak in French to you, you could have some fucking decency to talk to her in a language you clearly understand.” You’re not as upset as you thought you’d be, which is surprising. You’re just glad you don’t have to get Dave to type all of his answers out or have to speak French to him.

«I don’t know man you just seem trust worthy, I mean that’s what my gut told me and it’s usually not wrong. I feel bad about Kanaya cause she’s trying really hard, think I’m just gonna come clean to the Maryams I’m sure they’ll understand. And the jocks? Oh, you mean the annoying assholes who make me sit with them everyday at lunch and if I don’t threaten to talk shit about me. God damn no matter where I go they are always hanging around corners it’s like they are waiting for me. I swear straight guys have more homoerotic tendencies then actual gay people. They all get changed together and smack each other’s asses like wow guys calm down, don’t wanna accidentally pop a boner or something. That would not be very “no homo” of you. No offence to you if you’re straight. I mean if you are kudos to you. What’s it like only being attracted to women? You know what I’m gonna stop talking cause this isn’t ‘dive into Karkat’s sexuality’ time it’s ‘Dave how come to lied to an entire school board’ time.»

First of all, holy shit before today you never thought you’d see the day where this kid actually talked for more then ten seconds and now you are stunned with how much shit he actually says. 

Second of all , did he just insinuate that he wasn’t straight? 

“Wait, wait, wait you aren’t straight? And more importantly you think that I’m straight?” You laugh at this cause it’s kinda ridiculous. People have always assumed you were gay even before you knew knew you were gay, and the fact that someone assumes that you like tits is just really funny to you. When you came out to Terezi she was really confused cause apparently she had known for years.

«I mean I didn’t wanna assume anything. You’re always hanging out with that one girl with the red glasses and the other one that looks like she would kill you if you stole her pencil.»

“Ew Terezi and Vriska? Fuck no, and by the way they are dating each other. But if at any point you assumed that I like men your assumptions where correct. Gay is the way.” You say pumping your fist in the air. You came over here to do an English project not talk about sexualities, fuck you guys keep getting sidetracked.

«Nice nice I’m bi if you were wondering, I mean I don’t know why you would be but you know me oversharing again to someone I hardly know, anyway,» he looks slightly uncomfortable and you notice a tinge of pink on his cheeks,« wanna get started on the project? It might be a little easier now that we can just talk.»

“Yeah that’s why I came here in the first place you ass. I hope you know that this is gonna take a while, M. English is super fucking strict about word count and this one is huge. How about I do 10 000 and you do 10 000? By the way I’m fucking terrible at working in teams cause I have a leader complex or some dumb shit like that, so I will boss you around if you aren’t on your shit.”

«10 000 is good with me and I need motivation anyway so boss me around boss,» his facials expressions are becoming way less controlled and he’s smirking a lot more now, «oh yea question before we start. Is M. English’s name really M. English?»

“I think so?? Every time I’ve seen someone ask him he just shrugs them off and smiles at them so innocently. I think he’s fucking hiding something.” You both quietly giggle and get started on your project.

You head home around 6pm not wanting to intrude on the Maryams dinner plans. Dave has surprisingly been a good partner so far. You guys basically just did research the entire time but he listened and would even admit to getting things wrong when you pointed it out. You found out that he raps, which was not a surprise in the least but it’s great for the project since it’s mandatory to include new poets and old poets and you only know old English white man poets and Dave brings in a little more variety with the poets he knows. You think the most surprising thing that you found out tonight was that Dave isn’t straight. You had just assumed since he looked like the stereotypical jock that he would also fit into the category of sexuality that comes with being a jock. You’ve seriously misjudged him on that alone, who knows what else you could have misjudged him for. Maybe he isn’t the complete douche bag you thought he was. The part about him speaking English is also really fucking weird, but now you can’t imagine him not speaking English, but holy shit you where no prepared for how much he would talk. He really went from saying the least amount of words possible to the most you’ve ever heard to describe things that didn’t even need to be described. The worst part is he’s not even bad at the language, he doesn’t even have an accent, you wonder if he’s spoken it all his life or if he goes to a school with an immersion program in it.

When you get home Kankri pesters you about your day and your kinda reluctant to tell him that Dave isn’t as much of an asshole as you thought he was. You don’t end up telling him because you know he’s gonna get his shit eating grin that he gets when he knows that he’s right and it infuriates you to no end. After dinner Kankri leaves for his social club or whatever and your left alone. In reality you could have probably hung out with Sollux, you don’t think he was gonna go to the party unless Aradia was going and she’s out of town right now. You put on a movie on your laptop and fall asleep in your bed. You learned your lesson last time you slept on the coach and you don’t wanna have chronic back problems by the time your twenty.

————————————————————————————————————————————

«Is it just me or is it getting really hot in here?» 

You and Dave have been doing research for hours and you don’t quite remember how and when you got to his house but you think your brain is just fried from working too hard. You think it must be him being a baby cause Dave’s room is nice and air conditioned and has a lot of room for air circulation despite it being small. You have a sweater on and you’re fine, you don’t know how Dave can be hot with a short sleeve on. You go answer but when you speak no words come out. «Yea it’s definitely really hot in here.» he says in a raspy tone you’ve never heard come from him.

What the hell is he talking about? It’s not hot in here at al-

He’s taking his shirt off slowly, like really slowly, almost as if he’s putting on a show for you while doing it. His shoulders blades are so defined and his arms are way more muscular than they look with a shirt on. You feel your cheeks getting really warm and your heart rate picks up and starts beating at least two times faster. You squirm a little, what the hell is happening? And why aren’t you freaking out? 

«Sorry did I make you uncomfortable?» You shake your head violently to make sure he knows that you aren’t uncomfortable and you are quite the opposite at the moment. 

Dave’s chest and shoulders are littered with freckles just like his face and he has a few pimples on his sternum. He of course has a 6 pack cause obviously he would and his chest is a lot more broad than you would have expected it to be, and you can’t stop staring, fuck. You wanna trace his figure so bad and run your hands all over him, you bet he’d be so warm. You try to tear your eyes away but you can’t and you keep them locked on him, thank fuck he hasn’t noticed yet. You really wish he would take his stupid fucking sunglasses off that would make this 10x more enjoyable. He looks up and sees you staring. Shit, shit, shit. Gotta find a cover story, but you can’t talk or move. 

«It’s okay to stare.» 

You blush harder, why is he all of a sudden so attractive? The sun is shining on his skin and makes him look godly and unreal and you can’t believe your sitting in a room with him. You want to kiss him, like really badly. Your body actually allows you to move forward and holy shit he’s leaning in, are you guys gonna kiss? Does he want this too?

«Vient ici ma petite pêche.»

Holy fuckkkkkk, his French is doing things to you, you can’t help yourself when you wrap your arms around his neck and slowly guide yourself to his lips. Holy shit yes this is awesome, holy-

“KARKAT WAKE UP YOUR TURN FOR GROCERIES!”

You nearly jump out of bed, almost knocking over your computer in the process. 

“Karkat it’s nearly 1 o’clock in the afternoon, hurry up we’ve run out of milk and butter.” Kankri says standing outside your door, thank god he didn’t open it. You would have looked like a complete and utter pile of shit. You’re still really disoriented from waking up so suddenly. That was a wild dream, what the hell was it about? Shit, great your sporting some nice morning wood. What even happened in your dream? Something about Dave and shirts and kissing and...

No.

No, no,no.

You did not just have a dream about Dave Strider being shirtless .

You did not just have a dream about shirtless Dave Strider almost kissing you.

And you definitely only have morning wood right now and the tightness in your boxers is definitely not cause by anything or anyone else.

You are so fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation 
> 
> «T’as dit que tu parles le français? » = You said you can speak French?
> 
> «Ben je pensais qu’on pourrait faire notre projet aujourd’hui si t’es pas occupé.». = Well I thought we could do our project today, if your not busy.
> 
> « Est-ce que tu vas aller? » = Are you gonna go?
> 
> « Alors c’est réglé, tu viens chez moi ce soir. » = Then it’s settled, your coming over to my house.
> 
> «Quoi?» =What?
> 
> « On marche. » =We walk
> 
> «Pourquoi?»= Why?
> 
> «Vient ici ma petite pêche.» = Come here my little peach
> 
> Btw the ending is supposed to be cringy because I imagine Karkat’s dreams being stupid like that lol


	4. Why does my heart trip over itself?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave might get into a fight and Karkat starts to realize that the fluttery feeling in his chest might not be hatred.
> 
> Switches from Kk POV to Dave’s and back to Kk’s
> 
> Again the F slur is said and Q*eer (I know some people get upset by it)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one:  
> Me: I’m gonna update every week  
> Also me: doesn’t update for 2 weeks
> 
> There’s a lot of French in this chapter, as always translations are in the end notes. Ignore grammar mistakes if there are any
> 
> Also thank you guys so much for the comments they literally make me so happy <3

Your name is Karkat Vantas and it’s been 1 day 3 hours and 37 minutes since you had the dream about Dave. It’s been playing on repeat in your head and no matter what you do the thoughts always come back in full swing. It’s so fucking distracting, every time you try to do homework of any kind you are immediately reminded of it. Even when you try to do simple things like look out the window you can’t help but remember the way Dave looked when the sun way shining on him. You haven’t seen him since Friday and you have no idea how you’re gonna act around him after the thing that happened. But wait, why would you act any different? It’s not like the dream meant anything, sure it was the first dream you’ve had like that since you were 14 and Dave just happened to be in it but it didn’t mean anything. Nothing at fucking all!

Currently you are sitting on your bed trying to figure out how to get in contact with Dave so you guys can continue working on your project. He didn’t end up giving you his phone number or his ChumHandle so you really have no way of talking to him outside of school. You would ask him at school but you aren’t entirely comfortable with inviting yourself over to someone’s house with a whole bunch of people around and there is no fucking way he’s coming over to your house. You also aren’t a stupid prick who barges into peoples classes to come tell them to come over to your house. You do have Kanaya’s number, she gave it to you in case of any math emergencies or some dumb shit like that. You send her a text asking for Dave’s number.

Another thing (other than the dream) that’s been on your mind recently is the way Dave had talked about the jocks. It’s like he hates them and is basically forced to sit with them. Either Dave lied about hating them or he’s a damn good actor, cause he looks totally unfazed every time he’s around them and seems like he’s genuinely enjoying himself. Making he just likes fucking with them, with the whole French thing. When he mentioned the jocks he didn’t seem uncomfortable or upset, he actually seemed pretty mad. What the fuck could they have possibly said to him to piss him off that much? Even without seeing his eyes you knew he was glaring daggers. God dammit! That’s another thing you never ended up asking about, those stupid fucking sunglasses and even in your dream he had them on. It’s like every version of Dave in paradox space has those things on no matter what.

Kanaya is quick to respond to your texts, unfortunately she comes baring bad news. Apparently Dave’s phone doesn’t work in America because of the phone plan he has, so he can only text the same phone type he has and of course he has Apple (which you don’t, Samsung is way better in your opinion). Kanaya, being the sweet angel that she is asks you if she can deliver a message to him. On one hand this sounds very appealing, no having to wait around for him to try and catch him before class, no awkward silence when you ask to come over. On the other hand you feel bad that Kanaya has to be caught in the crossfire of your awkwardness towards Dave. You politely declined her offer and she tells you that you can always come to her for help. Holy fuck how nice can one person be? You make the decision to ask him in English class. You know he doesn’t pay attention in that class, no matter how hard he tries to he always seems to be drawn to his phone. You’ve seen him text people in blue, green, and purple. Even though he’s only been here a little over a week you’re already picking up on some of his habits which you find a little weird. It’s not like you don’t notice that with your own friends. Like how Terezi’s nose flares up when she’s mad or how Sollux puffs out his chest when he’s trying to concentrate, but you’ve never really concentrated on a strangers habits. Can you really call him a stranger? You’ve been to his house, you know his name,age, where he’s from. More of an acquaintance then a stranger.

The next morning you wake up a little more crankier than usual. English is always your first class on Monday and for third time in the span of two weeks you are dreading it. M. English doesn’t give you guys time to work on the assignment in class. He always does this with partner projects, apparently he likes being surprised with all the projects at the very end. This project will however be the death of you. You guys have only managed to write around 2,000 words each, out of 10,000. Which is why you are so desperate to get it done. It’s like a constant nagging voice in your head that tells you to just finish it, but you kinda need Dave there with you so it all flows into one cohesive assignment. You don’t even bother to wait for Kankri before leaving, you’re about 30 minutes early but you don’t give a single shit about that. As you make your way to school you curse at yourself for underestimating the weather. It’s fucking cold right now, and you’re freezing your ass off cause you thought Mama Texas had your back. Though you usually walk home with Sollux for some reason you don’t think you guys have ever walked to school together. You think it’s just an unspoken agreement since you guys are both not morning people.

When you get to school your anxiety has gone up a few pegs. You’re a little fucking nervous to talk to Dave, since the whole dream but it doesn’t fucking matter because as long as you don’t act weird he won’t think anything’s wrong. Walking down the stone path that leads to the front entrance you see the jocks. Since they are never in class on time you always just assume that they all slept in and it was a gamble to see if they’d actually show up. You didn’t think they came to school this early. When you walk pass them they all glare at you, sending daggers in your direction. It makes your anxiety spike just a little, but you can’t let them get under your skin. You glare back at them and make your way to English class. 

You’re really hoping that Dave is here today, last Monday he wasn’t and M.English seemed to know why, so he wasn’t skipping like a lot of the girls in your class thought. You just don’t know what you’ll do if he’s not. You’ll probably have to take up Kanaya’s offer. When you get into class M.English is concentrating on his computer so he doesn’t notice you walk in. You’re the first person, which is to be expected at this point, you’re usually the first. What you’re not expecting is Dave showing up 50 seconds after you. He’s walking in long strides like he did when you both walked home and he has his head down. M. English finally looks up from his computer and greats him. He responds with a nod. You are pretty early, why the hell is he so early? The few morning you’ve seen him someone has always been driving him, you wonder if that someone is Kanaya’s mom. When you both make eye contact he smiles openly and wide, just for you. You don’t know why but you’re getting nauseous again, but the good kind of nauseous. You feel like these little butterflies in your tummy are making a home there. 

Okay Karkat you can do this. Don’t make this weird with the whole dream thing, just talk to him and essentially invite yourself over to his house. It’s fucking fine that you get butterflies when he looks at you! It’s fine,it’s fine, it’s fine. 

«Heyyyy Vantas~»

Dave whispers in your ear and you slap him on the head and nearly fall out of your chair. You were so deep in thought you didn’t even heard him approach his seat. He starts quietly giggling and you feel your cheeks start to heat up. You look up to find M. English starting at you with a big mischievous smile and he’s wiggling his eyeshadows. Oh god why is he doing that???

“Strider what do you want?” You say trying to regain your composure. This would be the perfect time to ask him about you coming over. But you wouldn’t be Karkat Vantas if you didn’t procrastinate asking people for things. 

He doesn’t answer, simply smiles and pulls out his phone and starts typing. He hands it to you.

“You know I can understand French right? You don’t have to type on your phone, you can say it out loud.”

He takes the phone back from you and types some more. You almost go to ask him why he’s not speaking in English but then you remember the whole thing he told you last Friday. He hands you back the phone.

_ bro its way more fun to just type instead of speaking  _

_ makes it feel cooler _

_ just like me  _

You scoff at his explanation but decide that in this moment you aren’t really up for arguing. You take his phone and look up at the first thing he wrote.

_ how’s my best bro doing? _

You’re eyebrows knit at the wording. You guys have only hung out once (and it was to work for school not voluntarily) and already he’s calling you his best bro? Before you have the chance to deny that you guys aren’t “best bros” M. English has started the class. You didn’t even notice the class fill up. You sign and start to answer. 

The class goes by pretty fast. M. English is teacher something about prefixes but you are barely paying attention. You and Dave have been passing the phone back and forth to each other talking about random shit. You’re positive M. English has seen you guys doing it, you aren’t trying to hide it, but he has yet to tell you two to stop, so you continue. You’re realizing that Dave’s actually a really fucking funny person. A few times you’ve had to hold back a laugh and you’ve seen him do the same for you as well. M. English hands out work sheets, which he only does when there’s 10 minutes left of the class. You’re going to have to ask Dave now or else it will never get done. Nervously you pick up his phone from his desk to find that it is already unlocked. He gives you a curious glance and you ignore it in favour of typing out what you wanna say. You hand it to him when you’re done. 

_ WE ONLY HAVE A WEEK TOPS TO FINISH THIS STUPID FUCKING PROJECT.  _

_ IM COMING OVER TONIGHT WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT.  _

You wait nervously for him to reply. Why are you so nervous? If he says no he’s says no. It’s not a big fucking deal! Urg why is your heart rate accelerating?! He hands you back the phone and turns towards M. English before you can see the expression on his face.

_ okay _

_ stay for dinner this time _

Oh hell fucking yes.

-

Karkat asks you (more like tells you) if he can come over and you are fucking ecstatic. You wanted to ask him but didn’t wanna make it weird so you didn’t, jeez at least one of you isn’t a pussy. Your English class ends and you both walk to French together since it’s your next class. You’ve never walked to a class with him and for his short stature he walks pretty fucking fast in the halls. You guys don’t talk, he knows you aren’t gonna speak English and you are refusing to speak French to him unless he speak it to you as well. You’re just difficult like that. You see the group of jocks that are in your French class glare at you in the halls but you aren’t gonna think anything of it. They are probably just jealous of the Strider charm. You do have a couple of girls come up to you to say good morning, Karkat looks so uncomfortable when they approach so you make an excuse about being late, which Karkat has to translate to them. This makes him even more uncomfortable so you put both hands on his shoulders and push him forward out from the clump of girls. When you guys get to French class you smile at him before opening the door, he frowns in response but you notice his cheeks get a little colour on them. When you both go to your seats you feel him staring at you so you turn around and blow him a kiss. He nearly fucking screams and you are so glad that no one else was in the class. It’s just so fun to push his buttons. When more people start to fill the room you’ve gone back to your stoic self, no smiling no laughing. You’ve decided to save that for Karkat only, it might be cause you kinda have a huge fucking crush on the kid or because for some reason you trust him. It’s probably a little bit of both.

Your French class is boring as fuck. You fucking hate this class so much and you can understand why Karkat looks like he’s about to behead someone whenever he has to take it. The worst part is you can’t even talk to him, again you regret not taking a seat next to him on the first day. Another thing is the stupid teacher always asks you for clarification, like you’re the professional. It’s annoying as fuck, just cause you’re from France doesn’t mean that you know everything single grammar rule. When class finishes you’re making a beeline to the door, you’re trying really hard to get out of class before the jocks come and talk to you. Lady Luck is unfortunately not on your side and you feel one of them clamp a hand down on your shoulder just as your about to exit.

“Strider,” One of them says. Yes you should know their names but you don’t. Hell you know more of Karkat’s friends names than the people to hangout with on a daily basis. You don’t answer “Come outside with us, we need to have a little chat.”

Oh for fuck sakes.

There’s only two people out of the eleven on the team that are leading you to the back of the school. They are apparently the self proclaimed leaders of the team and they are also the people that approached you on your first day. You’re not an idiot, you’ve been bullied before you know what is about to happen, they don’t want a friendly chat they want fucking slaughter. What you did to deserve the fight you will inevitably be a part of in a few minutes? You have no idea. They lead you out the doors and turn around to face you. They look super pissed and you wonder if one of their girlfriends broke up with them to try and shoot their shot with you. It wouldn’t be the first time. You’re a Strider after all.

“What the fuck is up with you and Vantas.”

Oh.

That’s what this is about.

You shrug, you know that they won’t be able to understand you and no fucking way you are letting these shit heads in on your little language secret. Apparently shrugging isn’t enough because they both take a step closer to you.

“Are you guys fucking friends?

You nod, it’s not a fucking secret, you weren’t trying to hide it. At least you think you’re friends. You saw the way Karkat’s eyebrows knitted when you called him your best bro. Maybe you aren’t but who the fuck cares right now.

“Oh really? I thought we made it clear to you that we don’t hangout with people like that. The fucking runts and freaks of the school.”

These fuckers are right in your face and you have the slightest urge to flick them in the nose just to loosen the tension. You shrug, it fucking hilarious watching their faces contort when you don’t give them a straight answer. You’re also simultaneously trying not to lose your shit over the fact that they just called Karkat a runt. He’s fucking perfect not a runt or a freak.

“Awe look at Strider, looks like we hit a nerve insulting his little boyfriend.” One kid says to the other. Oh shit, you freeze. God damn is you’re crush really that obvious?No it’s not there just fucking with you. It doesn’t look like they noticed you freeze though. You don’t say anything in return. 

“Look Strider if you wanna keep hanging out with us you gotta stop hanging around with the little,” if he says the word you think he’s gonna say you are going to absolutely fucking lose your shit, “fag, he’s a good for nothing fucking queer who can’t do anything right. Do you really wanna fucking associate with him?” 

«Yes.»

They fucking hate that answer and one of the guy’s charges at you. Before you even know what you’re doing you are punching him square in the jaw. He stumbles backwards and his buddy is coming at you but you block his punch with your hand and twist his wrist. He yelps in pain, yeah dude you’re wrist is fucking sprained. You flash step behind him and kick his knees down all before the other guy even has the chance to stand up. You make your way over to him and put him in an arm bar. He starts to plead to you and you almost give. This guy of course has to dig his own grave and he says some ridiculous thing about not picking on the ‘fag’ anymore and you fucking break his arm. It’s a nice clean break just like Bro taught you and for the first time in your life you are so fucking happy that you spare with him.

« Esti de fucking connard. »

You make sure to flip them off before walking back into the school.

-

When you take your seat in the cafeteria you look around for Dave. Usually he’d be sitting with jocks but he’s not there. Two of the big shots from their party are also missing. You find that a little weird, you saw them talk to him while walking out of French. URG WHY DO YOU FUCKING CARE? Terezi and Sollux exchange a look as you smack your head on the table.

“Awe Karkles what’s wrong? Who are you looking for?” Terezi asks in a semi mocking tone. 

“I’m not looking for anyone shut up. And nothing is fucking wrong I’m doing fucking great.” You mumble into your sweater.

“He’th probably looking for Dave. TZ did you hear what happened on Friday?” You hope he’s talking about something else, you don’t want Terezi to know, she’ll tell Vriska and Vriska will tell everyone.

“No?! What happened on Friday? That’s when Vriska’s party was and you losers didn’t even show up.” You and Sollux never attend, it’s not fucking worth it. You wonder if Dave ended up going after you left. 

“A thertain sthomeone went to Dave’ths house.” God dammit Sollux.

“Karkat you didn’t tell me that!” She slaps your back. Even with without looking at Terezi you could tell that she was smiling menacingly at you. “How was it smelling your crushes room?” That gets your attention. 

“First of all I didn’t fucking tell you cause it’s not fucking important and it’s none of your business. We have a project and it needs to get done. Second of all his room doesn’t smell like anything because no one else except for your smells things like that. And third of all I don’t have a fucking crush on that jackass!” You feel you’re cheeks heat up at the last part. God dammit why does that keep happening?

“Kk it’ths okay. We aren’t gonna tell anyone.”

You groan and once again you bury your head in your sweater. 

Suddenly you feel the table get a little lighter, you look up to see Terezi waving at someone. Fuck you do not have the patience to deal with Vriska today. Terezi gets up and moves to the side of the table that Sollux is sitting on. You give her a questioning look and she just smiles. Usually she’d make you move so that her and Vriska could sit next to each other. The bench dips from added pressure and you look up to find Dave. You think your heart just tripped over it self for a second. He doesn’t have that usually cool air to him though, he sees really tense and his hair is all over the place. He looks at you and smiles and then you notice his hands. 

“Dave what the fuck happened to your hands?”

He tenses and you see him trying to avoid eye contact with any of you. You pick up his hands and they look like they are starting to bruise over. You glare at him and finally he leans over and whispers in your ear.

«I got into a fight, don’t tell anyone dude.»

He pulls away and your head is still a little fuzzy from the fact that he was so close to you. He got into a fight? With who? One of the jocks probably, is that why they took him to talk to them? Did they hurt Dave? Other than his bruises forming on his hands he doesn’t look hurt. You know from first hand experience that when they beat people up they leave a mark. You hope he got into the fight for a good reason. Terezi and Sollux look confused as fuck but you could care less, you aren’t gonna tell them. You clear your thought and introduce Dave probably.

“Dave this is Sollux and Terezi.” He waves at them and Terezi smiles nice and big with her teeth on display. “Sollux, Terezi this is Dave.”

“Oh Dave we’ve head so much about you. Did you know Karkat talks about you soooooooo much? It’s like your his favourite topic, it used to be romance but it looks like you have taken the top spot. Nice going cool kid.” Terezi grins at him and you see Dave’s cheeks go a little red. You also glare at Terezi. 

The rest of lunch goes by without any problems. Even though Dave doesn’t talk much, him and Terezi seem to get along. You and Sollux talk about a new program that he’s working on and before you know it it’s time to go back to class. The rest of the day is a blur. You tell Kankri that you won’t be home and he doesn’t seem to mind, which is good considering he gave you shit last time for not telling him t’ill the last minute. When you walk out of your last class you see the two jocks that took Dave aside. One of them has a sling around his arm and the other one is holding his wrist like it’s broken. Holy shit did Dave do that? You would have never guessed that a scrawny guy like him could beat up two bulky dudes. Well in your dream he wasn’t that scrawny, maybe his arms are actually like that. You remind yourself to not get on Dave’s bad side. Holy shit he would totally fuck you up, with his big hands and his arm muscles and- BRAIN LITERALLY SHUT THE FUCK UP.

«Karkat you good?»

Curse this kid for being so quite. You nod trying to get you’re blush under control.

The walk home is actually quite peaceful and is not filled with the weird silence that it was filled with last time. Kanaya doesn’t walk with you guys this time and Dave informs you that she has a club, he also tells you that’s why he’s always at school early. Dave also tells you that he did in fact tell the Maryams that he can speak in English, apparently they laughed and told him that they knew but are thankfully that he told them. When you get to the house Ms. Maryam is home and you talk to her for the first time. Dave snickers when you adjust your posture but she gives you a warm smile and welcomes you to her house. Apparently Kanaya talks very fondly of you and so does Dave.Dave blushes at this and first the first time you let yourself think that he looks cute. He takes you upstairs and you get to work. When you first step into Dave’s room you are so tense, just remembering the way he looked in your dream. You have to remind yourself several times that that’s not gonna happen and that you are making things weird for no reason. You guys end up working till dinner, you each have about 8,000 words and already know what the next 2,000 will be. That’s the fastest you’ve ever done a project, especially one with this type of length but it’s really because of Dave. God maybe you judged him to hard the first day you saw him, the guy really knows poetry.

That’s something that you’ve been thinking about. You’re usually really good at guessing what people are like based on your first impression of them. Hell the first time you saw Vriska you wanted to punch her and you still do. With Dave though it’s so different. He’s a completely different person then the one he pretends to be, he tries so hard to be cool,stoic, untouchable, but really he’s a huge dork. His cool kid facade is good, you were definitely convinced that he was the shittiest person on the planet but he definitely proved you wrong. You hate to say it but you’re actually enjoying spending time with Dave and you hope that after the project is done he’ll still wanna talk to you. How the fuck did you go from hating this asshat to wanting to spend time with him?

After dinner he takes you back upstairs, it’s about 6 o’clock and you really should get going but just as you’re about to tell this to Dave his computer starts going off.

«Oh shit. I totally forgot.»

Dave goes and sits on his bed and you follow him when you look at the screen there’s someone trying to Skype him. Tentacle Therapist? What kind of a fucking name is that? Is a porn star calling Dave? He does look a little nervous, maybe you should leave.

«Uh.. my cousin and friends are calling,» he scratches the back of his neck before looking up at you, «Do you uh... wanna meet them?»

It had never really occurred to you that Dave would have friends. The first time he spoke in English to you he mentioned some guy named John but you didn’t think to much of it. Usually you’d say no and tell Dave that you’re leaving but the way he’s staring at you right now is making you wanna meet these people. It won’t be that awkward. It’s fine they are probably all like Dave and will have some stupid ironic interests. 

“Sure, don’t expect me to be very friendly. In case you haven’t noticed I’m kinda an assshole.”

«Oh my god dude they are gonna fucking love you.» He gives you the brightest smile yet and you feel you’re heart clench as he answers the call.

When the call joins you see three people in frame. Two of them look like siblings, they both have black curly hair, glasses, and buck teeth. You’re assuming that one of them is John. The other person sitting in frame is a girl with hair exactly like Dave’s and has these gorgeous blue, almost purple, eyes. 

«Dave!» Two of the three people in frame yell in unison. «Qu’est-ce qui t’as pris tellement de temps à répondre?»

You sit awkwardly on the bed beside him, you’re currently out of frame which is completely fine in your opinion. You rather not show your face to these people who are in a different continent.

«Yo.» Oh my god is that really how he’s gonna say hi to his friends that he hasn’t talked to in who knows how long? He of course also ignores the question that they asked him. He looks at you and turns back to the computer. «Juste pour que vous sachiez Karkat est ici avec moi.» 

«Ahhhh! Est ce que nous pouvons le voir? » a feminine voice asks, the one that doesn’t look like Dave. 

«Yep.» Before you even have the chance to say no Dave is turning his laptop towards you and you feel like a deer in headlights. You have no idea what do you so you glare at Dave and give these three people that you don’t know an awkward wave. 

«Mon dieu qu’il est mignon! Regarde à ces joues. » 

“You know I can understand you right? And I’m not fucking cute.” Apparently Dave can tell you are violently uncomfortable so he takes the computer back. 

«Sorry man Egderp and Harley don’t speak English they gave no idea what you’re saying.»

“Can you at least introduce your fucking friends to me?” He pauses. The one that looks like Dave is giving him a knowing smile. 

«Okay, that one right there is John, my bro for life.» the kid in blue gives you a toothy grin, «We met when we were like 5 and we’ve stuck together ever since. That one is Jade she’s John’s sister you know that ‘soccer’ jacket I always wear? Yea that’s hers, I stole it from her before my trip. And the sarcastic one in the middle is-»

«Rose,» she cuts Dave off, «Rose Lalonde. I’m Dave’s cousin,» Well that explains the similarities between the two,« It is so nice to finally meet you Karkat Dave has told me so much about you. Though I am rather surprised to hear Dave speaking in English, he told me he was going to be ‘ironic’ during his trip and only speak in French. Could it be that you are special exception?»

«Rose shut up, Karkitty is the man. Can’t lie to him.» Rose is looking suspiciously at Dave but decides to drop the conversation. You glare at Dave over the stupid fucking nickname he gave you, that 45 minutes with Terezi was apparently too much. The four of them end up having a rather interesting conversation. They use words you don’t know yet and it’s quite pleasant to watch Dave interact with people that he’s use to and knows. He talks just as much in French as he does in English, he uses a whole bunch of fancy words and you can’t help but find it endearing. You’ve also never noticed how much he talks with his hands, he almost hits you a few times but you can’t find yourself to care. You haven’t said much, it’s not really your conversation but about 20 minutes into the call you notice Rose starts starting at you.

«Well Karkat you know who we are but what about you? Care to introduce yourself? Remember Jade an John do not speak English so you’ll have to speak in French. Dave tells me you’re exceptional at the language.» 

Motherfucker.

You’re mouth falls open and you gape at Dave. This fucking guy. He shrugs and gives you a smirk, oh god the butterflies are back at full force. Dave says something to you about how he spoke English to you the least you could do is speak a little French. You look at the screen, three pairs of anxious eyes are staring at you.

“If you guys fucking make fun of me I’m fucking leaving.”

You see Rose give Jade and John a translation and they nod. All of them are patiently waiting for you to be, you even noticed Dave leaning in a bit. If you’re gonna do this you better get it over with.

“Okay écoutiez car c’est le seul temps que je parle dans cette langue stupid. Je m’appelle Karkat, j’ai 17 ans, né le 12 juin à Houston. Whatever, j’aime mes cours d’anglais, déteste mes cours de math. Couleur préférée est gris, et avant même que vous me disiez que c’est pas une couleur vous pouvez fermer la bouche je m’en fou.”

Okay you might have gone a bit overboard there, they probably didn’t need to know your favourite colour. Dave’s looking at you awestruck and you wonder if he thinks you’re worse than your teacher. You look at the computer and Jade and John have the same look. Rose is face is neutral. Okay you’re getting a little nervous now, did you fuck up? Shit you fucking knew this was a bad idea. You’re just waiting for the laughs at this point. John’s the first to speak. 

«Pourquoi est ce qu’il parle mieux qu’Eridan?» 

You have no idea who Eridan is but what you do know is that Dave is loosing his shit on the other side of the bed. He’s laughing so hard and you can’t help but feel that he’s laughing at you. You ask what he thinks is so fucking funny and he stops, probably realizing that he hasn’t said anything about your pronunciation and shit.

«Dude you told me you suck at French, that was fucking awesome. Why aren’t you teaching the class? And it’s funny because John’s right. You speak better than this fucking kid that goes to our school and he literally lives in Paris. I’m going to send in a request to the school, I can see it now. M.Vantas, the best French teacher that ever lived.»

Your cheeks heat up considerably and you shove Dave, the other three are laughing on the other end of the line and you’re actually enjoying yourself. The call goes on for another 45 minutes. They talk about the guy Eridan, apparently he asked Jade on a date and when she said no he put something in the school news paper about it. John laughed his ass off while telling the story and Jade looked pissed. Dave makes fun of the way your French teacher talks and mocks her, which you join in on and that gets Rose laughing. All in all, it was good. You don’t think you’ve ever connected with people like you did with Dave’s friends. Fuck just thinking about it makes you feel giddy. 

Just as Dave’s about to hang up there’s a knock on the door. Dave tells the person it’s open and Kanaya steps in. She looks way more put together than usual and she even has her hair done. She’s also holding a piece of purple fabric which look like the base design for a dress. The air around her isn’t exactly the motherly one she usually has, it’s more tense and she seems very nervous. You look to the screen and Rose also looks very nervous. What the hell?

“Oh hello Dave, hello Karkat. I um.. heard that you were on a call and I was wondering if she was also on call? If not that’s completely fine i was just wondering if I could perhaps speak with her?” Kanaya asks rather quietly.

«Yeah she’s here come on over.» Dave replies. You look at him and he shrugs.

“I actually have to get going, nice meeting you fuckers.” All three of them say their goodbyes and you notice Rose’s cheeks turn a little red when Kanaya gets in frame. You’ll ask Dave about it. You check your phone while walking down the hall to get to the front door with Dave. You have a message from Terezi.

** \- - gallowsCalibrator [GC] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] at 7:45 - - **

** GC ** : K4KL3S

** GC ** : TH3 W1NT3R C4RN1V4L JUST GOT 4NNOUNC3D 

** GC ** : 1 KNOW YOUR3 4T D4V3S 

** GC ** : 1NV1T3 H1M TO COM3 W1TH US

** GC ** : 1LL B3 SO ROM4NT1C >:]

You go to tell Terezi to shut the hell up, but Dave sees what she wrote before you have the chance to respond.

«A carnival? Is it at the school?»

"Yeah, the stupid fucking school board does it so they can scam people out of their money so that they can afford to pay for stuff." You pause and look up at Dave before continuing. “ Do you wanna come with us? It’s pretty fucking boring but it might not be if you come.” WHY DID YOU SAY THAT?!

He looks at you and smiles before nodding. Your heart swells up and you can’t help but smile back. You’re about to leave when you remember that you wanted to ask what the hell was up with Kanaya.

“What the hell was wrong with Kanaya?” You ask and Dave starts chuckling.

« One night I was on call with Rose, and Kanaya walked in. So naturally I asked her if she wanted to meet Rose. Karkat when I tell you that their faces were blushing for like five minutes after they first saw each it’s not hyperbole. I think they may have a little crush on each other. Anyway yeah so now when I’m on call I’ll usually tell Kanaya so that they can talk. She’s even making Rose a dress.» he explains.

Damn that’s pretty cute. When you turn around to open the door Dave taps you on the shoulder and gives you a fist bump, you return it and give him a little smile. You notice his cheeks getting a little red and you take that as your cue to leave.

On your walk home you have a lot to think about. Why did you stay with Dave to call his friends? Why were you looking for him at lunch? Why does your heart do that stupid little thing whenever you guys touch or when he smiles at you? How did you go from hating this guys fucking guts to wanting to go to a fucking carnival with him? And the dream, oh the fucking dream. And the worst part is you like the idea of Dave’s friends liking you, you like that Dave smile at you so brightly and warm that sometimes it hurts. You like his stupid little jokes and the way he miss uses the word ironic all the time. You like the way he makes your heart feel. You think you just like Dave. 

Oh fuck.

You have a fucking crush on Dave Strider.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation Chapter 4
> 
> « Esti de fucking connard. » = Stupid fucking idiots (essentially)
> 
> «Qu’est-ce qui t’as pris tellement de temps à répondre?» = what took you so long to answer?
> 
> «Juste pour que vous sachiez Karkat est ici avec moi.» = Just so you guys know Karkat is with me 
> 
> «Est ce que nous pouvons le voir?» = Can we see him?
> 
> «Mon dieu qu’il est mignon! Regarde à ces joues. » = Oh my god he’s so cute! Look at his cheeks
> 
> “Okay écoutiez car c’est le seul temps que je parle dans cette langue stupid. Je m’appelle Karkat, j’ai 17 ans, né le 12 juin à Houston. Whatever, j’aime mes cours anglais, déteste mes cour de math. Couleur préférée est gris, et avant même que vous me disiez que c’est pas une couleur vous pouvez fermer la bouche je m’en fou.”  
> =  
> Okay listen up cause this is the only time I’m gonnna speak this stupid language. My name’s Karkat, I’m 17 years old, born June 12 in Houston. Whatever, I like my English classes, hate my math classes. Favourite colour is grey, and before you even say it’s not a colour you can shut your mouth I don’t care.
> 
> «Pourquoi est ce qu’il parle mieux qu’Eridan?» = why does he speak better than Eridan?
> 
> Also I have no idea how to code, one day I’ll learn


	5. Carnivals and Crabs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat doesn’t know how to deal with his feelings. Dave thinks Karkat is mad at him.
> 
> Switches from Dave’s POV to Kk’s and back to Dave’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by Broadway Karkat and coffee. I listened to Ave Maryam 7 times while writing.
> 
> Sorry if this chapter feels rushed, I really wanted to finish it on time. Hopefully it all flows together and makes sense. Probably a lot of typos too. 
> 
> Thank you for all the support!! <3

Your name is Dave Strider and your little crush is definitely blooming into something much bigger.  
Obviously when you came to North America you really didn’t have any intentions on making any strong connections, it would be pointless, you know you have to go back home in March. Your exchange program is only 4 months long and there’s no way of convincing the school to let you stay longer, plus you do miss some people back home. But Karkat’s company is awesome and it makes you feel so happy. It’s been a while since you’ve had the chance to just let go of your cool kid facade, Karkat doesn’t seem to mind in fact he tells you all the time that he prefers you when you aren’t being an ‘insufferable douche’. It’s been about 2 weeks since he met your friends and it’s been 2 weeks of teasing. Rose is constantly asking about your crush and even John and Jade have joined in. It’s easy to shut Rose up, all you do is call Kanaya into the room and she starts blushing like a tomato, it’s hilarious. You have no dirt on John or Jade though so they pester you constantly asking about Karkat. You really don’t mind though, you love talking about him. 

The day he met everyone was the last time he came over. Christmas and New Years had just happened and you hadn’t seen him over the break. You were a little bummed that you couldn’t celebrate Hanukah this year with Rose but the Maryam’s celebrate Christmas so you got to do that tradition this year. It was different but also enjoyable. You also got to meet Porrim for the first time, she was fucking intimidating with all her tattoos and piercings but she was so fucking nice. Apparently she’s a tattoo artist and is studying to be a clothing designer, that’s how Kanaya got into fashion. Her and Kanaya are so similar that it was funny to watch them interact. 

You wish you had a different cellphone plan, you could have texted Karkat this entire time. Kanaya said that she could send him a message on your behalf, when you declined she laughed and said that that’s exactly what Karkat did. Did he also wanna text you? 

As much as you wanna talk to Karkat the thought alone gets you a little nervous. He came over to your house on a Monday and on the Thursday of that week was the day you guys did the presentation for your project. But for the two days in between you guys didn’t talk, since you already knew what you had to write there was no need for you guys to do research or be in the same room. Every time you tried to sit with him at lunch he wouldn’t really talk to you and just watched you have a conversation with Sollux and Terezi (which was you writing on a piece of paper and Sollux reading it out loud to Terezi). Sometimes he would even get up and walk away with a huff. You really had no idea what you did wrong and every time you tried to ask Sollux or Terezi they just gave you a shrug. For the next few days you walked to your classes alone, you couldn’t really walk with the jocks anymore (not that you wanted too, fuck them) but you could never find Karkat. You would try and catch him after school to walk him home, you have no idea where he lives but you were itching to talk to him, but every time you’d go looking he was gone. God it was infuriating. When you said goodbye to him on the last Friday before the holidays he hadn’t even respond and that’s when you knew you had fucked up something.

You really wish he would tell you what was bothering him. Then again it might be something really personal and you guys only did become comfortable with each other over the last month. Just because you’re comfortable around him doesn’t mean he’s comfortable around you, and there are some things you wouldn’t share with him. Like the scars you’ve acquired over the years of doing strifes with Bro. You’re not just gonna tell him about that out of the blue, maybe it’s something like and he just doesn’t feel comfortable. You’re hoping the expression ‘time heals all wounds’ works in your favour cause you’d never admit it to anyone but you really miss Karkat. 

Sure you have Kanaya, you’ve adopted her as a sister at this point, but slipping into playful banter with Karkat was just so easy and it was so entertaining. You miss the little closed mouth smiles that he gives you or the way his eyes light up when he talks about something he likes. You learnt from Terezi that he really likes romcoms and when you asked him about his favourites his eyes got so excited and you wanted him to be that excited all the time. You like the way he blushes when you say something stupid or when you get too close, you just think it’s kinda cute okay? And his looks oh my god. When you had said that he was a gift the first time you saw him you really meant it. He’s beautiful, his hair cups his face perfectly and he has the cutest little cheeks. When you’re up close to him you like to play connect the dots with his freckles and you usually end up visualizing constellations. He always ends up giving you a weird look when you stare for too long but you never acknowledge that he’s caught you, another plus side to your shades. That’s another thing you like about Karkat, not once has he asked you about your shades or asked you to take them off. Sure he’s probably thought about asking you but having someone that doesn’t constantly ask you to show them your eyes is relaxing. You don’t think Karkat’s gonna react badly to your demon eyes but better safe than sorry. 

You hope that he’s been thinking about the last time you saw each other just as much as you have. Sure you pissed him off indirectly and now he’s been avoiding you but hopefully he still thinks about you. He probably doesn’t. You’re pretty good at hiding your crushes, hell John still doesn’t know that you had a crush on him. But he’s fucking oblivious to everything so maybe it was fucking obvious. 

Wait. 

Is that why Karkat has been avoiding you?

Did he put the pieces together? You really hope he didn’t, that would be so awkward because there’s absolutely no way he feels the same. You’ve seen Sollux and Terezi make him blush so you know it’s not just you and how could he? He’s told you multiple times that the faster the project is done the faster you guys can go back to pretending you’re strangers, at first you were like ‘alright sure’ but you can’t just go back to how things were before. Sure you already know he’s gay so he wouldn’t be grossed out by your crush or anything but fuck that would ruin the little friendship thing you guys had started to create. Have you really been that obvious the entire time? Maybe he found out that you beat up the guys on the football team defending him, did he not condone violence? It’s fucking Karkat, you’re pretty sure he would try and punch the air if it pissed him off. Did Rose get a hold of Karkat’s number and tell him? That would be pretty fucking shitty of her and you mentally slap yourself for thinking that your cousin is that mean. Plus she probably knows you’d spill the beans to Kanaya and you know for a fact she was planning on telling her. 

It’s currently 3 am on a Monday morning. You haven’t gone to sleep yet, you’ve tried but your mind is just full of Karkat. One thing that gives you hope about talking to him again is the winter carnival thing he invited you too. You’ve been to carnivals before and you’ve heard about the big one they host in Quebec every winter but you’ve never been to one hosted by a school before. When he said that it might not be as shitty if you went with him you almost cried, which would have been ridiculous cause Striders definitely do not cry, especially not in front of their crush. But it was so sweet and genuine that you couldn’t help but be ecstatic. You hope he doesn’t take back his invitation you’ve been really looking forward to going with him. You know Terezi and Sollux will probably be there but they’re chill so you don’t mind. You’re more than a little nervous about seeing Karkat tomorrow and that’s mostly the reason you can’t sleep. What if he says that he doesn’t wanna be friends anymore cause of your stupid crush or maybe the jocks made something up about you and that’s why he doesn’t wanna be friends anymore. You don’t know what you’d do with yourself, probably skip class and not go for a week or two. The only logical thing to do is confront him tomorrow at lunch, not in English class or in French it has to be at lunch so he’s not distracted. It’s the only way you’re going to find out what you did wrong and fix it.

Waking up is painful but you manage. You only ended up getting 2 hours of sleep. You look like shit and Kanaya has made a point to tell you. 

“Oh, Dave you look absolutely horrible, are you okay?”

«Kanaya I got two hours of sleep because I was thinking about the boy I like, how do you think I’m doing?» Its out of your mouth before you have the time to take it back. You hadn’t told Kanaya that you had a crush on Karkat though maybe she figured it out on her own. Your words are also a lot more bitter than you intended for them to sound. You need a coffee. Your brain is not functioning right without it.

“So the rumours are true, about you liking Karkat.” She says with a smile. 

«What?!» Oh you’re starting to sound like Karkat, it’s too early in the morning for this bullshit. What fucking rumours are being started about you? At school? Does the entire school know about your big fucking crush?

“Dave do not fret, there are no actual rumours.” There she goes reading your mind again, she’s been spending way to much time with Rose, “Just rumours amongst Rose and I.” Of course.

You curl in on yourself and flop down onto a nearby chair and let out a loud sigh. You aren’t one to usually dump your problems onto other people but you really need Kanaya’s advice and your honesty a little bit of a mess. Hell you haven’t even thought of any good metaphors today and your vocabulary is dying faster than people in Europe when the Black Plague was happening. There’s one! Fuck it was so shitty and you didn’t even say it out loud. This time you full on groan and Kanaya puts her hand on your shoulder and you’re snapped out of your thoughts.

«Is it really that fucking obvious?»

“I wouldn’t say so. I think it’s probably obvious to people like Rose but I wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t said something first.” That’s a little reassuring.

«Kanaya, I think he hates me.»

“What makes you say that?” She sounds genuinely concerned and that gives you the courage to tell her.

«Ever since he came over he’s been avoiding me. That night was so much fun but I think I pushed him a little too far when I introduced him to everyone. Maybe it was the fact that Rose came up with an elaborate plan to get him to speak French for my sake and curiosity. I think he knows about my crush Kanaya and I think he hates me for it. Every time I tried to talk to him the week before the break he would ignore me and would even just straight up leave, personal space is swag and all but it seems like he was genuinely uncomfortable with me being around and I just don’t know what I did.» You put your head in your arms, something you definitely picked up from Karkat, he does it whenever he gets overwhelmed with work or he’s just tired.

Kanaya on the other hand hasn’t said anything yet and its making you a little uneasy.

“I don’t think he hates you Dave.” Finally, the silence was killing you, “I know I’m not as close as you are to him but I have known him longer therefore giving me the advantage of seeing him interact with more people. You shouldn’t worry about him knowing about your crush either, he’s far to oblivious for that. Nepeta has had a crush on him since grade 4 and he has yet to notice, so stop worrying.” She says in a calm voice, you can feel her smiling.

«Then why would he be avoiding me?» You’re not pouting you’re just really frustrated.

“I have no idea, he might be working out his own things. His brother really gets under his skin sometimes so maybe something at home is bothering him. What are you going to do?” Maybe it is what you thought originally, maybe it is something else. The world doesn’t revolve around you.

«I was gonna talk to him at lunch.»

“I think that’s a wonderful idea, don’t be afraid to ask him if you’ve done anything wrong cause trust me he will tell you. He has no problem speaking his mind.” You look up and yep there’s that warm smile.

«Thanks Kanaya.» Before you have time to process her hand leaving your shoulder she’s pulling you into a hug. It’s a warm motherly one, the Striders and Lalondes don’t really do hugs so you’re super tense but eventually relax into it.

“Oh and Dave.”

«Yea?»

“If he fucking hurts you I have no problem intervening.” She says this with a smile but you’re kinda terrified? You know from Ms. Maryam that Kanaya used to do karate and that when she stopped she was a black belt. She would probably wreck Karkat. You don’t respond only give a breathy laugh.

-

After realizing that you have a crush on Dave you kinda went a little crazy. 

Okay, not psycho ex girlfriend crazy. The kinda crazy were you are so scared to embarrass yourself in front of him that the only solution you have found to avoid that is to avoid him. It’s irrational you know , you told Terezi and she called you a baby but what would Dave say if he found out? Would he not wanna be friends anymore? Would he scoff at you and tell you how much better he is than you? Looking at things from a logical perspective he wouldn’t do that. But you remember how Jade said that no one in their friend group could be friends with the Eridan guy cause of the fact that he had a crush on them. That guy took it a little to the extreme but still. You could never forgive yourself if you ruined a perfectly good friendship over a stupid crush. You can finally admit that you and Dave are friends. You wouldn’t tell anyone but you’re really excited that you guys are more than just acquaintances. At least you think you are.

The last time you guys hung out was so much fucking fun but it was also when you found out about your crush. When you woke up the next morning you couldn’t face him. No way, you probably wouldn’t even be able to get out a coherent sentence so you decided that it would be best to just avoid him all together. You don’t think he really noticed you avoiding him. He has his own life and you probably aren’t in the centre of it all. He sits with you, Terezi, and Sollux at lunch, it’s usually him writing on a piece of paper and Sollux reading it out loud for Terezi. It’s so fucking cute of him to keep up his stupid little charade about only speaking one language that you have to leave sometimes because he makes you feel so soft and flustered. You only talked to him on the day that you guys had to do your presentation, that was hard. You were so stiff the entire time and when you had to present you were actually relived cause that meant that you had another reason not to talk to him. M. English actually ended up pulling you aside after class to ask you if you were doing okay. You told him yes. He didn’t buy it but he didn’t press on the matter. You don’t know why it’s any different now. All that’s different is that you are conscious about your crush, that shouldn’t make you not want to talk to him.

The Friday before the holidays is when you feel like the biggest asshole on the planet. It was right after history and you decided to take the back door since Sollux was busy so he wasn’t walking home with you. You remembered just as you opened the door that Dave also takes the back door to leave and that’s also when you heard him call your name. He was still far from from the doors and you had just made it outside so you booked it and ran. You stopped as soon as you saw the door open. Just so it wouldn’t seem like you were running away from your problems (which you totally were). When he called out goodbye and told you to have a good break you didn’t say anything and just kept walking. You looked back at one point just as you were about to turn the corner and the look on his face is one you will never forget. It was so sad and in the moment you think your heart broke in a million pieces. You felt so bad but the feelings you feel for him would definitely ruin your friendship.

Over the break you’ve definitely gotten better. That probably has to do with the fact that you haven’t seen Dave in two weeks. Well the first step to getting over a problem is to admit that you have a problem. Well having a crush on Dave isn’t a problem but it is becoming somewhat of an awkward topic, again you aren’t sure why it’s so awkward. So to admit it to someone other than yourself you told Terezi officially that you have a crush on him. She of course already knew and teased you for claiming to be the romance expert but not acknowledging your own romantic feelings towards someone. You scoffed at her over the phone and she laughed her ass off. But you thought it would be a good way to make it less awkward of a topic and it worked!

Kinda.

It’s Monday morning and you’re kinda freaking the fuck out about seeing Dave. You don’t wanna keep ignoring him but you also don’t wanna be too obvious or even worse embarrass yourself in front of him. Fuck you don’t know what the fuck you’re gonna do. Hopefully he hasn’t noticed you ignoring him, he probably looked sad on Friday cause he thought you didn’t hear him. That’s fine you can work with that. You have English as your first class if you get there early you can ask M. English to switch seats, tell him something about how you’re having trouble focusing at the back of the class and you are positive that he’ll switch you up. For French you won’t have to do anything but get to class late. You know Dave doesn’t hangout in the hallways so that will give you time to get you’re shit together and wait so that more people are in the class. Finally at lunch you’ll just go in the bathroom. Easy peasy lemon fucking squeezy.

Your plan works. 

Or so you think.

You got to school 20 minutes before the bell rang and went right into English. You knew Dave would be arriving soon so you asked M. English to switch seats. Convincing him was harder than you thought it would be but when you mentioned some dumb shit about new year’s resolutions he complied. Dave showed up 5 minutes later you couldn’t get a read on him. He didn’t smile at you or anything and you felt a pang of guilt hit your heart. English was a success in terms of avoiding him. On to French.

You waited and made idle chatter with M. English before leaving. He asked you several time why you were being so cagey but you laughed it off. He knows somethings up. Hell he’s known you for 4 years he probably knows exactly what’s bothering you but you don’t say it. You get to French with one minute to spare nobody notices which you are thankful for. You notice that Dave isn’t in class which is a little weird but you don’t think anything of it and take your seat. He shows up after 50 minutes. Yourclass is still obnoxious and loud as ever but in that moment all you could think of was Dave. You forced yourself to go back to conjugating verbs. You wonder where he was. At least avoiding him in French was also a success.

It’s your break and you are currently hanging out in the bathrooms on your phone waiting for lunch to be over. You didn’t tell Terezi or Sollux about your plan so you kinda feeling bad about leaving them out of the loop. You don’t think they’d mind very much though so you don’t make an effort to tell them. They’d probably say that you’re being over dramatic, which you are, but you just don’t know how to deal with these feelings. It’s annoying, you wanna be around him all the time but you don’t want to be a nuisance. You want to know everything about him, all the things that make him smile and the things that get him upset. You want to be the one to make him smile. You know avoiding him is definitely not the way of getting him to feel the same about you but you’re Karkat Vantas. No one ever likes you back. You can’t even remember the last time you had feelings for someone, maybe that’s why you were so in denial at first about your feelings for Dave. It’s all so complicated, fuck being a hormonal teenager. 

Someone walks in the bathroom and slams that door, forcing you out of your thoughts. You check your phone to find that it’s almost the end of your lunch, it should be pretty safe to leave, maybe get to class early. You don’t have anymore classes with Dave today so that eases your nerves a little. You step out of the bathroom and look up to find Dave.

Fuck.

You want to run, hide, but you’re frozen. 

He looks in shock too.

You finally snap out of your train of thought and make a run for the door, he grabs your wrist and you’re unable to move. Fuck he’s strong.

«Karkat wait,» he says it louder than his usual tone which makes you a little nervous, «can I uh... talk to you for a sec?» Here it comes, he’s gonna say something about your crush and how he can’t be friends with you anymore cause it makes him uncomfortable. It’s okay you understand it would be pretty embarrassing to even be friends with you in the first place, it’s a great excuse. You don’t say anything and he takes that as a yes.

«I don’t know what I did to make you mad but I uh.. wanted to say sorry. I have a feeling it was something about introducing you to my friends and all that stuff cause making you speak French to Jade and John was kinda uncool of me. I know you hate speaking and it was shitty of me. But that’s just me speculating I understand if it made you feel uncomfortable and all that shit but I uh just wanted to say sorry or whatever.» He curls in on himself at the end and you feel like the biggest fucking asshole ever.

Of course he fucking realized that you were avoiding him and worst of all he thinks it’s his fault! Well technically it is but not in the way that he’s thinking. Then it hits you. You’re the reason he was 50 minutes late to French. Changing seats probably wasn’t the best idea, it probably made him think that you hate him. You’re the reason he seemed so sad the last week of school. It clicks in your head that avoiding Dave has done nothing but cause trouble, he thinks you’re mad at him but it’s the complete opposite you’re obsessed with him and you can’t articulate these feelings. 

«Hey Karkat, you there?» He waves a hand in front of your face and you realize that you’ve been quiet for too long. You also noticed that he hasn’t been using his stupid nicknames for you, you can’t tell if you’re relieved or disappointed. 

“Dave I’m so fucking sorry. Fuck I really fucked up, I’m not mad at you at all. I’ve been dealing with a lot right now and for some reason I took it out on you. Fuck I’m sorry for being such a douche. And I don’t care about the whole meeting your friends thing it was fun and I can admit that.” You should probably also add the part of having a massive crush on him, but you leave it out. He looks unsure of himself and for some fucking reason your brain goes into autopilot and you do what you normally do when someone you care about is upset.

You hug him.

You don’t mean to of course it’s a spur of the moment type of thing. He visibly tenses but you hold on. You want him to know that you’re not actually mad at him and you feel that Dave is the type of person that has to be shown that you aren’t upset with him. After a few seconds he hugs back and you are on cloud fucking 9. He’s still stiff but eventually he relaxes into it and you feel so happy just being able to hug him. You wish you could do this all the time, and without it being to prove a point. You fit perfectly under his chin and he clings onto you and you don’t ever wanna leave his arms. After a few more minutes of just standing in the middle of the bathroom he pulls back. You’re disappointed to say the least.

«Are we good?» he asks giving you his signature smirk that you haven’t seen in what feels like forever. God you missed him.

“Yeah we are.”

«So about that carnival thing...»

-

The carnival thing didn’t end up being for another 2 weeks. That’s fine by you you’re just relieved that Karkat isn’t mad at you and is talking to you again. The little hugging thing that happened in the bathroom was super uncool but was so fucking fantastic at the same time. You almost let a tear out, you didn’t of course but the little bitch almost slipped down your face. Hugging Karkat was like returning home after a 3 week vacation. It just felt so right, he fit perfectly in your arms and he was hugging you like you were something special to him. Which you aren’t. Even though you were a little uncomfortable in the beginning the more time past the more you realized that you didn’t want to be anywhere else. His arms are the safest place in the world and you would give anything to get the chance to hug him again.

You guys have been spending a lot more time together recently, he comes over most days after school and you guys spend all of your breaks together. You never go to his house, something about his annoying brother. You totally get that, if you were back in France you would not let Karkat anywhere near Bro, dude’s too unpredictable. You’ve been teaching Karkat a lot of new things in French to expand his vocabulary. His swear word vocabulary that is. He has a wide variety of insults but a little more never hurt anyone. The first time he said one out loud was the fucking best. You guys were just chilling in your room doing some homework, you were working on a music assignment and he was working on some math. You saw it coming too which was the best part, his eyebrows knitted, he signed super loud, and through his pencil on the ground.

“Tabarnak!”

You don’t know how long you laughed for but you couldn’t breathe by the end of it. 

You think his favourites are «merde» and «pute». He uses those a lot to describe people even though he doesn’t use them in the right context most of the time, at least he’s trying. He even uses them in his French assignments which is hilarious because your teacher knows nothing about French slang so she thinks he’s using fancy words.

All in all the past two weeks have been fucking delightful.

It’s the third Friday of January and you are a little nervous but you are so excited. Tonight is the first night that the winter carnival thing is open and you are so pumped to be going with Karkat. You know all of his friends are gonna be there too but you won’t let that stop you from spending all your time with him. Maybe his friends will disperse, you heard Sollux is bringing a girl named Aradia and Terezi is obviously bringing Vriska. Karkat has graciously filled you in on what the whole event is about. It’s basically just a way to fundraise for the school and the town helps out and shit. Even though it’s a school thing it’s not being hosted at the school which is logical since they apparently have rides and the football field is definitely not big enough to host something like that. Everyone has decided to carpool so you are mentally preparing yourself to get into a car that Vriska is driving. You’re waiting on the front porch in the ‘freezing cold weather’. It feels like spring weather to you but you don’t mention it to Kanaya when she comes outside to keep you company while you wait. She also hands you a coat and you take it, cause why not. Rather be too hot then too cold. You had invited Kanaya to come with you but she declined, something about a project she had due and calling Rose tonight. She blushed a little when she mentioned your cousin but you chose not to point it out. After all, she did help you with your little early morning crisis a few weeks ago.

Vriska pulls up and makes it known to the whole neighbourhood by honking the horn 5 times. You say goodbye to Kanaya and jog to the truck so that she stops honking. The ride is fucking awkward to say the least. You’re all fucking squished in the back of Vriska’s pick up truck, the only other person who has a good seat other than Vriska is Terezi. You and Aradia talk a little, she knows a little French but you mostly just listen to her talk about the dead animals she finds on the road. Oh man you love this girl already. Karkat is uncharacteristically quite the entire ride and you can’t tell if it’s because he’s uncomfortable or because he’s excited. You’re gonna say the latter. 

When you arrive at the faire grounds you are pleasantly surprised, you didn’t expect much from the way Karkat described it, but it’s pretty decent for a school fundraiser. You kinda expect everyone to hang around together but as soon as you all got out of the car everyone disappeared and it was only you and Karkat. Not that you’re complaining.

“Fuckers ditched me again! Third year in a row they do this to me. At least you’re here this time.” The end of his sentence is a mumble but you still make out what he says. It makes your heart leap. 

Without saying anything else he locks your arm around his before entering the carnival. You almost pull back out of instinct but him holding you feels so right that your body doesn’t react and you follow him in. The first thing you guys do is buy food. They’re are a lot of vendors and you’d say that 90% are food related. You wait in a 15 minute line because Karkat wants you to try something, he hasn’t told you what he’s buying you, it’s a surprise. He buys you deep fried pickles (which you have never tried) and you fall in love with them instantly. 

«Is it legal to marry a pickle in America? Cause I would totally do it, right here, right now.» He rolls his eyes at you but you see a little smile that he’s desperately trying to hide. You tell him if he ever comes to France you are going to buy him escargot, he makes a puking noise but you laugh it off.

Next you go on a couple of rides. You make a point about only going on the kid rides because it’s hilarious trying to fit your ridiculously long limbs in the ride. Also because Karkat is afraid of heights so you don’t want him to piss himself going on the Ferris wheel. When you suggested going on it he stopped walking completely and froze up, you thought he was having a stroke but apparently he’s afraid of heights. Whatever you can deal with not going on a Ferris wheel, shits probably boring as fuck. Maybe that’s why his friends ditch him every year, you saw Terezi and Vriska waiting in line for some big ride, they probably think Karkat’s being a ‘party poopy’ by not going on them. The rides get pretty boring after a while so Karkat suggests playing some games.

Fuck yea. You are the fucking master at these stupid obviously rigged games. 

You remember going to an amusement park for the first time when you were six. At that time you were still really tiny so you couldn’t go on any of the rides that interested you, so Bro taught you and Rose how to cheat the system and win these rigged games. After that you and Rose would make a game out of it, how many times could you win before the person running the booth says you can’t play anymore. Surprisingly a lot. All that to say that you are definitely gonna show off in front of Karkat today.

“Don’t get your hopes up, it’s almost fucking impossible to win these stupid games.” 

«Then why are we playing?» you know you have a 98% chance of winning, but you can’t tell him that yet.

“Kinda wanna see you fail at something Strider.” He says with a smirk. Oh it it is so fucking on. 

«Okay pick any one of these, I’ll win.» 

“Okay M. Hot shot, let’s see. How about that one?” You follow to where his finger is pointed, it’s the game where you have to throw a ball into a bin that’s on a 45 degree angle. 

«Sure why not.»

You both make your way over to the booth. You pay for your ball, you only bought one, it was 6 fucking dollars. Shit is crazy expensive. The trick to win this one is to hit the top of the bin so it falls down on an angle and doesn’t fall out. You do it, quite flawlessly if you say so yourself. Karkat looks like he’s just seen a ghost his mouth is open in awe and even the vendor looks a little surprised. There’s not a wide selection of prizes but among them is a plush crab that has these giant eyebrows. Holy shit it looks just like Karkat. He doesn’t see what prize you picked out, he’s already gone to find another game for you to win. You pocket the crab, you’ll give it to him later.

Karkat has made it his goal to find a game that you can’t win. He gets frustrated every time you win and it’s fucking hilarious to watch. You explain to him that Bro taught you, you have to be good at obviously rigged games to be a Strider. He says that doesn’t make sense since you’re a Strider no matter what because it’s your last name. You’ve spent about 30 dollars so far but you’d say you got your money’s worth. The next time you win you have to ask a vendor for a bag, you have more than 10 plushies to carry and Karkat refuses to unhook his arm from yours. You are in heaven every time he hooks his arm back to yours after you finish winning a game. You like to think it’s out of affection but you know it’s because he doesn’t want to get lost. After about 3 more wins you are turned down for the first time by a vendor. Guess the carnival got wind that you’re a super cool guy who wins at everything.

After not being able to play anymore games not only are your arms getting tired from carrying all the shit you won but you’re so fucking bored. There isn’t much else to do but you don’t want to ruin it for Karkat so you don’t say anything. 

“Is it just me or is this place fucking boring?” Thank fuck he said something first. You nod in his direction. “Do you want to go sit in Vriska’s truck? I know she keeps it unlocked.”

«Hell yea dude, my arms are getting a little tired to so it might be good to have a little rest.» You exit the carnival and head towards Vriska’s truck, Karkat still has his arm locked with yours and you can almost imagine that you’re on a date with him. He climbs into the back of the truck and you follow him in, you throw all your winnings in the back of the pickup. With the carnival lights shining down on Karkat’s face he looks straight out of a movie. His features are so prominent and his eyes are sparkling in the way that makes it look like he’s gonna cry. You remember the crab.

«Close your eyes.»

“Why?”

«Just do it.»

“Strider if you try and chloroform my ass I will take you to court, Terezi wants to be a lawyer.”

«I’m not going to knock you out. Just close your eyes dude.» He does it very reluctantly. «Now put your hands out.»

“Jesus Christ what is all this for?”

«Just wait a second bro.» you take the crab out of your pocket and put it in his hands. When he opens his eyes he’s definitely a little confused. 

“Is this a fucking.....oh my god.” He starts laughing, like really laughing. Laughing harder than you’ve ever seen him laugh. “Why the fuck does it look like me? Oh my god hahahaa!” You aren’t sure if he likes it or not but you’re taking his laughing as a good sign. Seeing him happy is like getting water after running a 5 km run, it’s so fucking refreshing. You know your cheeks are burning, your body feels hot but you are so content. He turns to you and gives you the biggest fucking smile. With teeth.

It’s the happiest you’ve seen him, his skin crinkles at his eyes. His teeth are crooked but he’s so charming. He doesn’t have a care in the whole and your heart feels like it’s expending in your chest. How can someone be so perfect? How can one person make you feel so happy and safe all at the same time? He’s the only thing in the world right now. His happiness is the only thing that matters. You don’t want this moment to ever end.

And then you have an epiphany. 

You aren’t sure how it makes you feel. It shocks you so much that it doesn’t register to you when other people get into the truck, it doesn’t register that Vriska is driving. You’re in your own head. You hear Karkat say goodbye to you as you exit the truck, at least you have the decency to wave back at him. You don’t hear Kanaya try to talk to you. You just head straight to your room and shut the door. A few minutes later she knocks.

“Dave are you alright?”

«I think I’m in love with him.»

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: I’m reading ‘This Could Be Us But You Playin Ring Toss’ for the first time and I’m scared at the similarities between that fic and this chapter wtf
> 
> Translation for chapter 5
> 
> Tabarnak=fuck
> 
> Merde= shit
> 
> Pute= slut
> 
> Just all my favourite French swear words :)


	6. Valentines Day? More like a day for suckers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s Valentine’s Day. Dave is neutral about the whole holiday and Karkat is no where to be seen at school.
> 
> Switches from Dave’s POV to Kk’s right at the very end.
> 
> This one probably has a lot of mistakes because I didn’t have very much time to write. Sorry about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I planned this fic out back in November I thought ‘Valentine’s day is a good trope’, I didn’t think I’d actually be able to post it on the day itself. 
> 
> This is the longest fucking chapter I’ve ever written it’s 9.4k
> 
> Hope you guys have a good Valentine’s Day with your significant other if you have one. I do not have one and that’s why I wrote this fic lol

Your name is Dave Strider and you could not be happier that it's February.

Well okay that’s kind of a lie. February means you only have one month left before you go back home but February is also the month of love. You and Egbert always give each other gifts for Valentine’s Day, of course it’s all for ironic purposes and there’s no romantic feelings behind it, but it’s always a good time. You guys try to see who can get the worst gift for the other person. You can take or leave Valentine’s Day, nobody around you really celebrates the holiday and you personally think it’s a scam to get people to buy shit. Which you totally give into, since you usually buy John the biggest teddy bear monstrosity you can find. You’ve had some girls in the past confess their ‘love’ to you, you never reciprocated those feelings since you hardly knew them. You and your friends usually wander the streets February 14th since that’s when a bunch of tourists like to visit France, and more specifically your hometown, Paris. You guys like to make fun of all the lovey dovey couples and sometimes Rose likes to strike up a conversation with them. She usually plays therapist for these random people in the park and it's absolutely hilarious. This year however you won't be home for the whole ordeal, you aren't necessarily upset about that, but if Eridan proposes to Jade again you are gonna be pissed that you missed it. Surprisingly, John usually wins your little game of shitty gifts. He usually buys something related to Nic Cage, one year he bought a body pillow and left it at your door in a black garbage bag, you thought he killed someone. This year you are determined to win and since he thinks that the game is called off because you arent in Paris it’ll be so fucking easy. Sure it's a little sneaky but it's payback for all the pranks he’s pulled over the years.

You don't realize what day it is till Kanaya comes running into your room without knocking. Waking you up with a loud bang. You nearly leap out of bed and you reach for your sword only to realize that you're at the Maryam’s and not at home. You look over at the time to see that it's only 6:30.

«Kanaya what in the name of the 44th U.S president are you doing?» You’re still shaking a little from the adrenaline rush that you just got.

“Forgive me Dave but as you may know it's February 14 and I was supposed to ship Rose her dress weeks ago but I got distracted and completely forgot to send it. It's obviously not going to arrive for today but the faster I send it the faster she will get it.” She says slightly anxious.

«And you needed to wake me up to tell me that?»

“I need her address, mother and I were halfway to the post officewhen I realized I didn't have it.”

You get out of bed and stubble over to your makeshift desk. You write Rose’s address down on a little piece of paper and give it to Kanaya. You probably should’ve asked Rose if she’s okay with Kanaya knowing where she lives but you figured that since Kanaya literally made her a dress she wouldn't mind.

«Dude it's literally 6:30 in the morning, why are you shipping it now? Is it some unspoken prophecy that only you and Rose know about? Something stupid like if the package doesn’t arrive at exactly 4:13 some bad shit will happen and we’ll all be forced to play a game were we end the world and we turn into gods? Honestly knowing you two it wouldn't surprise me in the least. Rose can read people's minds. I'm sure of it and she's rubbing off on you, you've guessed what I've been thinking sometimes before I even knew I was thinking it. Not that that has anything to do with the ‘prophecy’ but it was just an observation. You know I think you’d really like Rose’s sister Roxy, she’s like Rose but wayyyyyy cooler. Definitely my favourite cousin, don't tell Rose or Dirk. Holy shit have I ever mentioned Dirk to anyone here? Probably not, dudes a little embarrassing, I think he's seen my little pony at least 34 times and that's not even hyperbole. He has this huge fucking crush on John and its fucking hilarious watching them interact because Dirk is so stiff the entire time. One day I’ll tell Rose to get Roxy on the call she’s so fucking cool and-»

“Dave, I mean this in the kindest way possible but shut up. Please remind me to never wake you up early again, your talking goes through the roof,” Kanaya says with a breathy laugh, “the reason i’m going to the post office now is because it’s the only time I have available to go. No Rose and I do not know of any prophecy. Yes I would love to meet Roxy and no you've never mentioned Dirk till just now. Does that answer all your questions?”

«Just one more. Updog?»

“Pardon?”

«Updog.»

“What is ‘Updog’?” She narrows her eyes suspisiouly.

«Nothing much, what's up with you?»

“Mother!” she yells, “Can we send Dave back to France early?” You erupt into a breathless fit of giggles before dozing off again.

You wake up 20 minutes later feeling a little more rested. Friday is the best day of the week and it always put you in a great fucking mood. When getting dressed you decide to skip Jade’s coat and you put on a Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff shirt that you made yourself last year. You pair it with some back jeans and you decide that you look presentable for the day. Getting your hair to look nice is a little more difficult since you always wake up with knots, Kanaya has given you some tips on how to manage them, they have worked surprisingly well. When you get downstairs no one is home which doesn't surprise you considering town square is a 10 minute drive and Kanaya did only leave about 15 minutes ago. You grab a box of cereal, lucky charms (you haven't stopped eating them since you got here) and you put them in a bowl. Then you pour in some lactose free milk that Ms. Maryam bought you after realising you left your pills at home, it doesn't taste the same as regular milk but it's better than having the shits for 3 hours. Sitting at the kitchen table all alone you pull out your phone. You send a long ironic paragraph to the group chat you have with John, Jade, and Rose. In the paragraph you confess your love for John and Jade which they find hilarious and then you tell everyone how much you love Kanaya which pisses Rose off. You're about to write a paragraph about how you’re in love with Karkat when you realize that that's a terrible idea.

Cause you  _ are _ in love with him.

After the carnival it was a little awkward for you, not that you didn't want to be around him, quite the opposite actually. You felt this need to be by his side 24\7 and you could tell that it was annoying him so you did your best to lay off. He noticed that you were being distant and of course him being the sweet, kind person that he is thought he did something. Obviously you didn't tell him what was really going through your head but he bought your lie. Well it wasn't really a lie, more of an exaggeration, you simply said you were homesick. Which is a little true but definitely not enough to put a damper in your mood. You wonder if people are going to flock to Karkat to give him things for Valentines day. It wouldnt surprise you, hes so fucking cute and so incredibly handsome. You've thought about getting him something, just a way to say ‘Hey! I’m kinda madly in love with you,’ without saying it out loud. It would be pointless, it's pretty obvious he doesn't feel the same way and you don't really want your heart to get broken on Valentines or ruin the incredible friendship you have with Karkat, so for now you’ll keep it to yourself. Maybe you'll tell him one day, when your phone plan works and when you're in the comfort of your own room. Bro would say that it's the cowards way out but you'd beg to differ, dude has never had a boyfriend before so you are not taking his word. Your friends start to pester you about typing for too long, you erase the beginning of the paragraph for Karkat and tell them that your love has run out. You close the chat and continue eating.

Ms. Maryam walks through the doors a few minutes later. Kanaya isn't with her, she had a club this morning and they figured that she might as well just get to school early to prepare. Ms. Maryam tells you that you will be leaving a little later than usual so you go and sit on the coach and wait till it’s time to go.

The usual 2 minute ride takes 10, the traffic is really fucking bad. Mostly because the school is right near a shopping plaza. An alarming amount of people are coming out of the store and for a second you think it's black friday. There are a whole bunch of people all bundled up for the weather, most people are leaving the stores with flowers or chocolate, some coming out empty handed. You didn't think people in Houston,Texas would take this day so seriously, hell you dont think youve ever seen anything like this in Paris and it’s supposedly the city of love. Well everything is supposed to be bigger in Texas, even the Valentine's day celebration apparently. You've never gotten to school this late before, there's a lot more kids waiting outside than usual. You notice that a lot of the girls that usually hangout with the ‘popular’ boys are outside,they are all wearing different shades of red and pink. Oh shit theres a fucking theme at this school? At least the principal is doing something for once. You spot Terezi going inside and you notice that she's wearing a neon green shirt. You see some girls scoffing at her and its fucking hilarious cause you know she did it on purpose to piss them off. You're about to get out of the car when Ms. Maryam holds you back.

«Whats up Ms. M?» Her face looks stern and you wonder if you've done something to piss her off.

“Dear you should tell him how you feel.”

«What? Who?»

“The boy who always comes to our house after school, Karkat was it?” How the fuck?

«I-what? How did you?»

“Dave, sweetheart, you are not as slick as you'd like to believe. I think he's eaten at our house at least 3 times and I see you making gaga eyes at him behind your shades everytime you both sit at the table. It is quite clear that you like him in some type of way so I think you should go for it and tell him how you feel. It is Valentines day after all.” She says, finishing her statement with a warm motherly smile.

«Ms. M I have to get to class.» You leave without another word. Your cheeks are so fucking hot right now and you might die of embarassement. Ms. Maryam looks content, almost like she knows you are going to take her advice. Which you will not.

Your morning is pretty boring after that, you try not to think about what Ms. Maryam said, to no avail. You find your mind playing the conversation over and over again. Should you really tell him? Ms. Maryam hardly knows anything about the type of relationship you have with Karkat. She doesn't know if he feels the same, hell she probably didn't even think about how it would break the friendship you've worked so hard to build. You've never had anything like this with anyone. You've known Jade and John since you were 5 so you didn't really have to actively try to be their friend, and Rose is family so it was kinda a given. But Karkat, Karkat is so special and you can't lose him. You'll bottle up your feelings forever if it means that you guys can stay friends.

When you go to lunch you expect to see Karkat sitting with Terezi and Sollux. However his usual spot has been taken by Vriska and he's nowhere to be seen. You stand in front of the table a little awkwardly, Terezi and Vriska are making out and Sollux’s looks like he’s on the verge of going apeshit.You don't usually sit with them unless Karkat is there. Come to think of it you haven’t seen him all day.

“Hey cool kid,” Terezi says, pulling away from Vriska who huffs in annoyance, “what’s up?”

«Karkat?» you say in a questioning tone.

“Oh he’s not doing too well.” She goes back to kissing Vriska.

«Wait, what? Is he okay?» Terezi and Vriska stop and even Sollux looks up.They stare at you and they give you a questioning look. Fuck you just spoke in English, god fucking dammit. «Don't make a big deal about it, don't ask questions. Just..» you sigh in defeat, «is he okay?»

“Okay firtht of all what the fuck?” Sollux says with wide eyes.

«Dude i told you to not make a big deal out of it.»

“Silence in my courtroom. We will be taking up Dave Strider’s case. So M. Strider when was it that you were first able to speak a language other than your own? And how long has this little charade been going on? Huh?” She says smirking wide. Vriska doesnt look very surprised, she honestly looks a little pissed.

«I’ve had to explain this to 3 other people but I’m telling you guys cause at this point I do not give a single half of a shit. I lied, I speak English. Don’t even try to play hero cause I’ve seen Terezi steal from the cafeteria, Sollux I literally watched you hack into government official websites at lunch, and Vriska you literally throw underage parties! Who are you gonna tell about my elaborate ironic plan?» They all shrug and look at each other. 

«TZ please I just need to know if Karkat is okay? Like there has to be a reason that you are all so sceptical about it? Did he get into a car accident? Or is he really fucking sick? Do I need to fucking get him some soup? I know he hates missing school cause all the extra homework isn't worth the effort, he says it all the time. Especially when I told him that when I first came here I skipped a whole bunch. Do you guys have his homework? I can bring it to him, I mean I have no idea where he lives but I’m sure I could find his house. Hell I could do it for him if he’s feeling that fucking bad, I’ll hand it to him wearing rubber gloves and everything to make sure i dont get infected and shit. Pretend like hes fucking radioactive and I work in a powerplant, I’d treat him like a piece of uranium. But is he actually sick? Oh god, maybe he got into car accident, am I right? Oh shit what the fu-»

“Strider literally shut the fuck up. Karkat is being a fucking baby and went home cause he was crying. He’s fucking fine and I dont know why we have to make a big deal out of this every single year. You all know he does it for attention.Now can I please go back to kissing my fucking girlfriend?” Vriska practically yells. Terezi gives her a look and kisses her softly on the cheek, that shuts Vriska up for a while.

“What my spidery bitch of a girlfriend was trying to say,” Vriska sneers at her, “is that Karkat is sad. It happens every year on this day because he’s a hopeless romantic and all this love shit really gets to him. He went home because he was fucking sad, and he doesn’t do it for attention,” its her turn to sneer at Vriska, “Vriska just happens to be around him every year when he gets upset, and her saying things like, ‘Look how happy me and Terezi are’ doesnt help him.” She says in a tone that’s a little diffensive. Huh, you would have expected her to agree with Vriska about him being a baby, she actually seems genuinely pissed at her girlfriend for saying that. 

You feel really bad for Karkat, even though you don't really get into all this valentines day shit it didn't really cross your mind that all this stuff would make him that upset. You knew he liked romcoms but you kinda expected it to be ironic? Like he didn't actually like the premise of falling in love. Just thinking about him crying makes your heart twist in an unpleasant manner. There’s only one thing you can do. You check your schedule and see that your afternoon is boring and it won't do you any good to go to the classes. 

«TZ, what’s his address?»

She gives you a smirk.

Getting to Karkats house is not as easy as you would have thought. He lives in a subdivision that’s kinda run down but all the houses still manage to look the same. His house number is 69 B, yes there is a 69 A. You went there first before realizing that Terezi had specifically said that there are two different houses with 69 as their house number on the same street. It doesn’t make any sense but you don’t question it. His house stands out to you because it’s the least damaged one in the subdivision, it doesn’t have apple trees like the Maryams house but at least the windows aren’t cracked like a lot of the other ones here. You feel a pang of anxiety hit your chest, what are you doing? He probably doesn’t want anyone to see him right now, god are you really that clingy? You just wanna make sure he’s okay because no one deserves to feel like shit on a stupid made up holiday. Maybe you should leave. You’re too involved in your inner monologue to realize that the door to the house has opened.

“Can I help you?”

That snaps you out of your thoughts. When you look up you feel like your brain is playing tricks on you. There’s a man standing at the door, he can’t be much older than 24, but he looks exactly like Karkat. Well okay, he’s taller, much more skinny, and his hair isn’t as curly but the resemblance in the face is uncanny. He also has way less freckles than Karkat, so in your eyes he’s the boring more bland versioned him. He’s wearing a red sweater and you hope he didn’t put on that colour because of Valentine’s day. This is probably Karkat’s brother. 

“Hello? Do you have a brain in there? Are you a Jehovah’s Witness? You know it is extremely problematic going from door to door trying to convert people. Have you ever thought that maybe I am comfortable with not putting my beliefs on display? It is also quite chilly, why don’t you have a coat on? And what’s the horrible thing on your shirt? I simply find the font a little hard to read and it’s a little ableist in my opinion, maybe you should consider buying another shirt that is easier to read. I hope you have learnt something from this experience and no I do not want to purchase anything you are selling if it’s those horrid tee shirts. Good day.”

Holy shit. You suddenly realize why Karkat and his brother get into so many fights. The guy is fucking insane. He goes to close the door but you jam your foot in it before he can close it all the way. 

“I will not hesitate to call the police if you do not leave my property and I’ll-“

«Dude chill out, I’m just here to see Karkat. I heard he was feeling down.»

He looks at you suspiciously, almost like he’s trying to figure out if you’re lying. “Okay then, what is your name? I’m sure Karkat would have mentioned you if you two are really that close. And I don’t recall ever seeing you before.” 

«Names Dave.» His eyes widen a smidgen and you can’t tell if he knows who you are or if he’s trying to piece it together. He opens the door slowly and crosses his arms over his chest. Behind him you can make out the layout of the house. It’s nice, certainly nicer than your apartment, it has a living room, kitchen, and you think you can make out a bathroom at the end of the hall. There’s a TV and a shit ton of books on a book shelf. Jesus, Karkat wasn’t kidding when he said his family are bookworms. The kitchen looks small from where you are standing but it looks cozy enough. Karkat’s brother, (who you think is named Kankri?) motions for you to come forward. You take off your shoes and when you look up he’s waiting for you at the bottom of a staircase.

“Knock before going in, I’m leaving the house so if he get’s upset and kicks you out I won’t be able to help.” He says sending daggers your way, Jesus you’re just going to comfort your best bro. 

«Jesus okay, what door?»

“Third door on your right. Do not make me regret letting you into our house, Karkat is very adamant about only hanging out at your house. Do not upset him more than he already is.”

«Ha! So you do know who I am.»

“Dave Strider, I think my brother talks about you more then I talk about the importance of respecting people’s triggers. Which is to say a lot.” Your cheeks warm up a little at that comment. You thought Terezi was lying when she said he talks about you a lot.

«Okay, okay thanks.» 

You walk up some stairs till you reach a landing. The upstairs is certainly much smaller then the downstairs but is still bigger that your whole apartment. You peer into the rooms as you pass them. The first door is a bathroom and you quickly glance at it. Seems normal enough, it has a bathtub with a shower head, a toilet, a sink. Pretty standard bathroom. The walls in the hallway have many pictures, most of them are just Karkat and his brother from when they were kids. A particular picture of Karkat catches your eye and you can’t help but stare at it. He’s at the beach, his nose and cheeks are bright pink, probably a sunburn. He’s looking up at the camera and he’s smiling brightly, his crooked teeth on display and his beautiful brown eyes shining like he just won the lottery. He can’t be more than 6 in the picture, his cheeks are even more chubby then they are now and his jawline is basically nonexistent. You notice that he has way more freckles in the picture. He’s holding a crab and showing it proudly to the camera for everyone too see. He was a really cute kid.

The next room must belong to Karkat’s brother because there is no way that it’s Karkat’s. The room is extremely tightly, there are folded clothes on the bed and nicely organized stationary on a desk. You stick your head in a little more and start to examine the room rather thoroughly. You did hear his brother leave a few minutes ago but you don’t wanna get caught if he comes back for some reason so you make it quick. You laugh under your breath when you notice that his sheets are made out of some type of lingerie material, it’s a little fucking weird and you’ll have to ask Karkat about it later. You’re about to leave when you notice a picture frame on a nightstand. There are 2 people, adults, who you don’t recognize and what appears to be a younger version of Karkat’s brother. One of them is holding a baby, while getting a closer look you realize that it’s baby Karkat. Examining the 2 adult you realize that they look a lot like the Vantas brothers, oh shit this must be their parents. You’ve never heard Karkat talk about them, and there are only 3 doors upstairs. Maybe they sleep downstairs. That’s another thing you’ll have to ask him about. You hear a sniffle that snaps you out of your thoughts. You remember that you aren’t here to snoop around, you have business to take care of. Right now you’re here to make Karkat Vantas feel better, the guys you have a crush on. The guy you are kinda madly in love with. Okay you can do this.

You knock on his door rather softly and listen for a response. You wait about 2 minutes before deciding to just walk in, if he’s naked then oh well, no biggy, you’ll just close your eyes and walk out while pretending nothing happen. When you open the door he’s not naked nor is he even awake. Well actually you can’t tell, the blinds are halfway closed so it’s pretty hard to make out anything with your shades on. From what you can see Karkat’s room is nice, definitely tidier than you expected. It’s a pretty simplistic room but you can definitely tell that someone who likes romcoms lives in it cause holy shit. He has a plethora of different posters all from romcoms, some you’ve seen and some that you’ve never heard of. Some that you recognize are Legally Blonde, Hitch, 10 things I hate about you, and how to win a guy in 10 days. Your eyes shift to Karkat’s bed where his back is facing you. He’s curled in on himself with the blankets pulled over his head, you can still see a tuff of hair protruding from the top of the comforter. You hear a little sniffle that breaks your heart. Poor guy.

«Karkat?» you say softly, you don’t wanna startle him or wake him up if he’s actually sleeping. 

He sighs loud and angrily. “Kankri how many fucking times do I have to tell you, I’m okay!! No I don’t want to talk about it so just fucking drop it! Jesus fucking Christ!” 

He throws the blankets off of himself in a fit of rage to prove that he’s okay. When he looks up at you the scowl on his face disappears instantly and morphs into a confused frown. “Dave?”

Carefully, you move to sit on his bed. He’s staring at you with confusing and you are finally able to take in his features. He looks incredibly sad, his eyes are red, glossy, and puffy, presumably from crying. His face is littered with the red patches that people get when they cry. He’s wearing a sweater that you’ve never seen before, it’s dark grey and way to big to fit him. You two stare at each other for a minute. It’s painfully awkward, you wish he would break the silence but he looks like he’s in a daze. You lift your arms up slowly and move closer to him. 

«You uh.... wanna hug?» you wince at yourself mentally. You’ve never really initiated a hug so you don’t really know what to do. Do you just go for it? Or is there a procedure? You think back to when Karkat hugged you for the first time. He just kinda went for it. You think you’ve hugged more people while staying in Texas than you have in your entire life, it’s a pleasant feeling though. Karkat looks at you and tears fall from his eyes. 

«Fuck, shit... We don’t have too, it’s just a suggestion. We can chill and we don’t have to do any-» he falls forward into your arms. His head is buried in the crook of your neck and you can feel your shirt and neck getting soaked. He’s sobbing very quietly but every few minutes he makes a loud sniffing noise, oh man your heart can’t take this. You wrap your arms around him, holy shit he’s so warm and his sweater makes him feel so fluffy, you almost feel like you’re hugging a cloud. You start to gently rub circles into his back, his arms come up and hug your waist. The feeling comes back at full force, the feeling of love and belonging. This is where you are supposed to be, here with Karkat, comforting him, putting him back together like the robots Dirk likes to disassemble and rebuild. This is the safest place in the world, even if Kankri came back and distributed you two you wouldn’t flinch, you wouldn’t go to get your sword, you’d stay right where you are. The sniffles die down after a while but Karkat continues to hold on to you, almost as if he’s afraid that if he lets go you’ll disappear. You are so fucking happy you decided to skip your last classes, Ms. Maryam will understand. Hopefully.

Karkat pulls away from you and you almost whine. Almost. You don’t cause that would be ridiculous and completely selfish, Karkat is sad right now, not you. He puts a hand on your cheek and you tense up, you feel your cheeks get incredibly hot in a manner of seconds and you’re positive the entirety of Karkat’s neighbourhood can hear your heartbeat. He doesn’t pull away when you tense up, you can’t tell if that’s a blessing or not. “Holy shit..” he mutters in a raspy voice, “you’re actually here.”

«Of course I am dude, you thought I was some hologram sent from outer space? I mean you wouldn’t be wrong, my ass is out of this world.»

“I thought I had fallen asleep and I was dreaming shit face,” he says with a groan, “what the hell are doing here anyway?”

«Oh well...» you could lie, say that you skipped class and you just happen to be in the neighbourhood so you decided to come fuck around at his house. You don’t think Karkat wants a lie right now though, «I heard you where kinda down in the dumps so I thought you might like some company.» you say, flashing a signature Strider smirk at the end. You notice his cheeks get a little red and you don’t think it’s from crying.

He turns to look at the clock beside his bed. “It’s 1:30, how the fuck did you manage to get out of school?”

«I walked out.» you say casually.

“You what?!”

«Dude I literally just walked out of the front doors after lunch.»

“Are you fucking kidding me?? When I wanted to leave because I was balling my fucking eyes out they made Kankri come get me! I’m 17 fucking years old why I couldn’t just walk out is beyond me. And they didn’t even question you? Unbelievable.” He mutters the last part.

«Speaking of which,» you say cautiously, «why are you upset?» You’ve heard bits and pieces from Terezi and Sollux but you wanna hear it from Karkat. And if he doesn’t wanna talk about it that’s fine too.

“I didn’t want to talk about it with Kankri and I am certainly not talking about it with you. My turn for a fucking question, why are you here.”

«Didn’t I already answer that? I came here to check on my best bro and to keep you company, while you’re upset.»

“You mean you skipped class to come keep me company while I cry like a baby? There’s no way you can convince me that’s there’s no ulterior motive to you coming here.” He says with a little scepticism.

«Dude I swear I don’t have any other intentions. TZ just told me that you were sad and I was like ‘huh the rest of my classes are boring, no point in going to them if I’m not going to learn,’ and now I’m here.»

“Dave you have music in the afternoons on Fridays. You love music! How come you’re not there right now learning about the treble clef of whatever?” You smile to yourself, wow he knows your schedule. That’s kinda cute.

«Exactly that’s the problem we’re learning about the treble clef and it’s boring as shit cause I already know it. Besides I rather be here with you.» The last part is a little too sincere for your liking, you choose to ignore how Karkat’s eyes widen when you finish speaking. 

«So uhh, is there something you wanna do?» 

“If I’m being completely honest I’d really like to take a nap, all that crying made me tired as fuck, and I have insomnia so that’s fucking impressive.” he says playfully, oh fuck yea he’s going back to his normal mood, “I don’t know how comfortable you’d feel with being alone in my house though, you might have to talk to Kankri. That’s a fucking challenge in itself. Speaking of which how the fuck did you even get in?”

«I had to talk to the main man himself. He thought I was a Jehovah‘s witness. Dude is a little bit fucking crazy. I’ll come back another time when I’m not busy and bug the shit out of him, now that would be a fun activity.»

“I’m so fucking sorry you had to deal with him, he left the house right?” You give Karkat a nod, “Also you should totally come over to bug the shit out of him. That would be fucking historical.”

«Looks like we’ll be spending more time here then.» you say in a playful tone.

You both smirk at each other. Your heart still hasn’t calmed down from when he touched your cheek.

Karkat does end up falling asleep, you stay with him till his breathing becomes even. He told you multiple times that you could leave but you didn’t, you just sat on his bed and waited for him to fall asleep. This all feels very domestic and you’re not sure how you feel about it. Sure, you’ve fantasized about this scenario happening 100 times but now that’s it’s actually happening your mind is jumping all over the place. Is this platonic? Does he just want you here so you can feel better? Or does he actually enjoy your company? Either way you’re just happy you can be by his side. 

You get a great idea. You aren’t quite sure how long Karkat will be asleep for but you do know that he will be out for at least 30 minutes. You quietly flash step out of his room and go downstairs. Kankri isn’t back yet which you are very thankful for, you do not want another interaction with him. You put on your shoes and slip out the front door, you make sure to grab the keys on the table beside the door to lock it. You walk back to where your school is. The stores are a lot less busy since classes are still in session and most people should technically still be at work. You go into the first store which is a CVS, you really aren’t sure what to expect from a pharmacy but you end up finding some chocolates that you think he might like. Dude loves dark chocolate. 

The next store you go to is a Whole Foods. This place is significantly more busy than the CVS but definitely not as packed as it was this morning. You hope Kankri or Karkat didn’t have anything specific planned for dinner because you are making something for Karkat. Even though the most you can cook is Mr. Noodles. You’ll just uh.... make it gourmet? Yeah, that’s fancy enough. You grab 4 packs of the shrimp flavour, Karkat mentioned once that he really likes shrimp. You grab some vegetables, you should have probably taken inventory of their house, they probably already have all this shit. You still end up grabbing some tomatoes and carrots, Karkat is always bitching to you that you need to eat more veggies. You go to the drink aisle next, you of course grab yourself a bottle of AJ and you grab Karkat one of those bottled Starbucks Frappuccinos. You buy it mostly to be funny, but also because you know that if he doesn’t have a coffee when he wakes up he’s almost impossible to talk to. Right as your about to check out you notice a bouquet of flowers. Tonight is not the night that you’re gonna tell Karkat about your feelings,it would feel selfish on your part, you don’t want to take advantage of his sadness. But this is the night where you’re gonna treat him like a king, he deserves all the happiness in the world and you’re going to give it to him.

The walk home is boring but your arms are killing you from carrying all the bags you got. When you get inside of Karkat’s house you tuck the flowers and chocolates away into a different bag and you put that bag inside your backpack. You’ll give it to him when the moment feels right, you don’t want to make him more upset. With your luck he’ll probably think you’re playing some joke on him. Karkat doesn’t seem to be awake yet, which is great for your plan. It’s currently 3:40, making dinner right now would be a little pointless since it’s still early, so you text your friends back in Paris to distract you for the next couple of hours. 

Around 5:15 you get up and start making Karkat a nice ‘fancy’ dinner. You make all the Mr. Noodle together in one pot. It only take you about 5 minutes before all the noodles are cooked. You’d usually only add the flavouring but Karkat deserves better, so you are going to season these noodles Kylie Jenner style. You stir in some butter, some garlic powder and finally a scrambled egg. You’ve never tried this yourself but since the internet made such a big deal out of it it’s probably good. You pour the noodles in a bowl and chop up the vegetables and put them on the side. Holy shit you are a god damn chef, if Karkat doesn’t like this then you will gladly eat it for him.

You go upstairs to discover that Karkat is awake typing away on his phone. When you knock on his door he sits up immediately, turning his phone face down as fast as humanly possible. “You’re still here?” He asks, he sounds very surprised.

«Of course man, come downstairs. I have a tiny winy surprise for you.» you say putting a little bit of a French accent on your words. He looks at you in awe but he follows you out of his room anyway. When you turn around to see if he’s following you notice something.

Oh fuck.

He isn’t wearing pants.

You turn around as fast as possible so that he doesn’t see you staring. You’re heart is beating even faster than before and your cheeks are on fucking fire. Oh god you saw the outline of his dick, okay well not really, but it isn’t hard to imagine. You become incredibly stiff. ‘Jesus Christ dude get a hold of yourself, you’ve seen Egbert get changed like 50 times. Do not pop a boner, do not pop a boner, do not-‘ 

Fuck.

At least you’re wearing jeans.

When you both get downstairs you tell Karkat to close his eyes. Not only because you want to see his face when you show him his super sick dinner but you also do not want him to see how pink your cheeks are at the moment. This time he actually obliges without a fuss and puts his hands over his eyes.

«Alright you can open them.... now!»

When Karkat opens his eyes you fear that you have done something wrong. He doesn’t speak for several seconds and his eyes gloss over. When he blinks tear fall out and you get the weird ache in your heart again.

«Fuck no, not again. Dude I’m so sorry I don’t know what I did bu-»

“Dave?” He says a little sad.

«Uh, yea?» you respond, because you are super fucking slick.

“Why in the fuck are you so nice? Why did you do this? Why are you helping me so much? Like how the fuck did you remember that I like the shrimp ramen ? No one remembers that, not even Kankri and he’s my fucking brother.” Tears are still pouring out of his eyes. You’re relieved that they are happy tears.

«Dude how could I not remember? I listen when you talk and you even went on a whole rant about how it’s the superior flavour of Mr. Noodles.»

He blushes a little and you can’t help but find it super fucking cute. God he’s so handsome. 

“Alright,” he blurts out a little too loud, “let’s eat this shit before it gets too cold we can sit on the couch and... are these vegetables?”

You laugh at his question and give him a nod.

“Huh, didn’t think you had it in you Strider. Nice job adding some healthy stuff in it.” He says with a lot of sarcasm. Him and Rose would definitely be best friends. 

You take your things over to the living room. It’s pretty nice in here, definitely way more chill than the Maryam’s living room, that family has a weird aesthetic for their living room. You both sit on the opposite side of the couch. You notice that Karkat has a blanket draped over himself and is snuggling into it as he takes his first bite. Your heart does fucking back flips. Holy fuck he’s perfect. 

“Holy shit this is good? How the hell did you manage to make 99 cent noodles taste so good?”

«The Kylie Jenner method.» you respond proudly. He laughs and it makes you feel an ounce of pride. He doesn’t laugh like this with other people, only you. You’re so happy you make him smile.

You eat the rest of your meal in comfortable silence. Karkat compliments your cooking a couple more times and you give a breathy laugh. It’s literally just Mr. Noodles but you are flattered anyway. After he’s finished eating you take his dishes and go in the fridge to get his coffee. When he sees it his eyes widen and he gasps audibly, he also mumbles something along the lines of ‘what the fuck’ under his breath. You watch him chug the entire bottle in less than 2 minutes. You hope coffee doesn’t do to him what it does to you cause he will be bouncing off the fucking walls with that much caffeine. The two of you sit on the couch for a good two hours and talk about whatever comes to mind. You’ve never been able to do this with someone and the feeling is so incredible, the conversation just flows with Karkat and there’s never any awkward pauses or misunderstanding of vocabulary. Even when you forget a word in English he’s always patient with you and shit. It just makes your chest all fuzzy.

Around 7 he suggests that you two should watch a movie.

“We should watch a movie.”

«Only if I get to pick.»

“What the fuck Strider, no. Knowing you you’ll pick some stupid ironic shit.”

«What? I’m personally offended, you know I’m much more than just my irony.» you say trying to sound as dramatic as possible.»

“My house my rules.”

«I am your guest.” You say wiggling your eyebrows. He stares at you for a second before giving in.

“There’s no way you’re gonna let me pick first is there?” He asks sounding a little exasperated.

«Nope.» you say offering him a small smile.

You end up choosing Christmas & Co. because why wouldn’t you? It’s a fucking Christmas movie and it’s the middle of February, its hilarious. You see the look on Karkat’s face as he reads the title. He gives you shit for it but still asks you what it’s about. You explain to him that it’s about all of Santa’s 92,000 elves getting ill and collapsing, simultaneously. And then Santa has to try and figure out how the fuck he’s gonna deliver all the gifts. Typical Christmas movie. 5 minutes in and Karkat turns to you.

“You didn’t tell me the entire movie is in French.” 

«Would you have rather watched ‘Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle’?»

“Nope! Nope. I don’t know what that movie is but I’m too afraid to find out. This movie is fine.”

Usually when you watch movies the people around you get annoyed really quickly with your commentary. Of course it’s not the same with Karkat because he’s fucking awesome. You both criticize the movie and shit all over it on multiple occasions it’s really funny to watch Karkat yell at the TV. At one point you have him laughing so hard that he falls off the couch. Intern that makes you laugh really hard, like so hard that you start to feel light headed. You also fall of the coach which makes you laugh even harder, you’re trying desperately to get air to your lungs but you just keep laughing. When you finally stop you look at Karkat. He’s sitting on the floor with his mouth open agape and his eyes are wide. You notice that he’s a little more colourful than usual, huh thats odd, why is that? You go to adjust your shades because they feel a little off.

Fuck.

Your shades.

You start to panic, you twist 90 degrees to find that they are still on the coach. God he didn’t deserve to be exposed to your freaky eyes. Fuck he’s probably freaked out.

“Dave what the fuck?” Here it comes, the insults,the questions, and maybe even the boot. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve been asked to leave someone’s house because of your peepers. Karkat shuffles on his knees to get closer to you, you’re buzzing with anxiety, he hasn’t said anything yet. He puts his hand on your cheek again and you tense up way more than the last time. He just stares and you reach for your shades only for him to pick them up first.

“They are so fucking beautiful.”

What? 

No. 

They aren’t beautiful.

They are demonic and bad.

They’re ugly.

«What?» you say as a whine because you are pathetic and you need to know if he’s joking or not.

“Dave! You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen! What colour are they?Vermillion? Holy fucking shit!!” He says examining your eyes, he’s right in your fucking face and you know he can feel the heat radiating off of your skin. No one has ever said anything nice about your eyes, not even Bro and his eye colour is unnatural too so you’d think he’d understand.

«You mean you don’t think they are ugly?» 

“Excuse me?! You mean to tell me that people have laid eyes on these gorgeous eyes and have told you they are ugly? They must be fucking blind or just straight up stupid to think that. Is this why you wear glasses all the time? So people don’t make fun of them?” He sounds a little sad at the end. 

«Uh, yea that’s one of the reasons, not that I care what people think but getting called a demon 5 times a day kinda gets to you after a while. They are also super sensitive to light and it’s fucking sunny in Texas, » you say quietly, «again I’m sorry you had to see them.»

“Do not fucking apologize Dave. This literally made my whole entire night. All of the sadness I felt before, boom, it’s gone. Your eyes fucking did that Dave, I mean so did you, with everything you did but seeing your eyes was just the cherry on top. Holy shit I can’t get over how fucking beautiful you are.” 

You both freeze.

What?

«What?»

“Uhhh....” Karkat says louder than usual, “my turn to pick the fucking movie.”

Did Karkat just call you beautiful? You aren’t beautiful, you’re all rough and scarred and everything about you screams unnatural and weird. How could someone as perfect as Karkat think your beautiful? How could someone as handsome, cute, kind, and gentle as him think anything of you? He’s everything a person could want and you’re nothing.

You don’t speak till halfway through the movie. You have no idea what movie Karkat decided to watch you didn’t even realize that something was playing till about 2 minutes ago. You’ve been thinking the entire time. 

Okay so what do you know? 

You know that you’ve fallen in love with Karkat Vantas 3 months after meeting him. He’s a grumpy guy with a short stature and he loves romcoms. He cares deeply about his friends even though he doesn’t like to say it. He’s handsome, adorable, absolutely perfect, and is fucking great at writing English assignments. Every moment you spend with him feels like an eternity and a second all at the same time. He makes your heart skip a beat and your cheeks red most of the time. Being around him is like being around a guardian angel, he makes you feel safe, a feeling that you’ve never really been familiar with, a feeling that you didn’t think was possible. He makes you feel like something, like you can do anything as long as he’s here with you. You would have never beaten up those jocks if you hadn’t met Karkat. It seems like recently he’s the driving factor for everything you do.

You also know that you’ve been able to make him flustered before. His cheeks get incredibly red whenever you compliment him and he always squirms at your comments. He’s also hugged you a total of two times you’ve never seen him do that to anyone else, he probably has but for some reason it felt different. It felt like he was pouring love into his hugs and not the platonic type.

You also know that he thinks your beautiful, which is baffling.

What Ms. Maryam said this morning rings in your head. 

_ ‘It is quite clear that you like him in some type of way so I think you should go for it and tell him how you feel. It is Valentines day after all.’ _

You remember the flowers and chocolates in your backpack.

Fuck it.

There’s no time like the present.

And if he doesn’t reciprocate than you can apologize and leave.

«I gotta uh, go to the bathroom.»

-

Ever since you called Dave beautiful he’s been acting really weird and for a good reason too. Why the fuck did you say that? Well it’s not a lie Dave is fucking stunning and his eyes were a huge fucking surprise, you wish he would show them off more, but it must be incredibly awkward to have someone who’s fucking ugly call you beautiful. He doesn’t talk for a while, you’re so fucking anxious because it’s not like him and you know you fucked up.

When he announces that he has to go to the bathroom you tense up. You thought he was gonna say that he leaving. That would have put you in a state of misery. You let out a little ‘okay’ and point him in the direction of the bathroom.

When he gets back he’s carrying a white plastic bag, he definitely did not get that from your bathroom. Come to think of it, you didn’t even hear the skin or the toilet flush.

“What’s that?” You ask carefully.

He shifts on the coach. He may think that he’s good at hiding his emotions but he’s really not, you can tell by his body language that he’s really fucking nervous. 

«So I, um.. you know, uh.» that too he stammers a lot when he gets nervous.

“What’s up Dave?” 

He takes his sunglasses off, you gasp but he doesn’t say anything about it. You don’t think you’ll ever get used to seeing his eyes, they’re just so intoxicating. He slowly makes his way to the other side of the couch. His face is inches away from yours, your breathing becomes way too loud for your liking. The movie in the background is long forgotten and you are both staring at each other. No one dares to break the silence, there’s to much electricity going on between you too. Dave is practically in your lap and your just sitting there like an idiot.

«It’s uh, really hard to explain. Can I just.. show you?» His voice comes out extremely shaky. You nod frantically, you wanna know what’s making him like this, it can’t be anything bad right? It’s just-

....

....

Oh god.

He’s kissing you.

And he initiated it.

And he wants to.

And he’s pulling away.

“Get your ass back here.” You practically growl before slamming your lips back on his.

You’re kissing Dave Strider, the guy you’ve been crushing on for what feels like forever. The guy who came to your house because you were sad. The guy that made you fucking gourmet Mr. Noodles and remembered that you like the shrimp ones. The guy that let you sob in his arms while he practically massaged your back. His lips are so soft and it’s better than you could have ever imagined. The kiss is slow but extremely meaningful and you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Eventually (because human lungs suck) you pull away for air. You both stare at each other in awe. He slowly reaches for the plastic bag. When he has it in his lap he pulls out chocolate and flowers.

«You wanna be my Valentine?» 

You can’t help yourself, you start crying again.

“I can’t believe it.” You say while smiling and crying, “I spent the whole day upset because I was so sure that you didn’t like me back. I’ve never liked someone as much as I like you Dave. I was so upset because I couldn’t have you, which sounds really fucking selfish but it’s the fucking truth. Dave you’ve been on my mind since the first day I saw you sitting on that desk like a fucking loser. The reason I avoided you for that week in January is because I didn’t know how to deal with my fucking crush on you. Of course I want to be your fucking Valentine.” You manage to choke out between sobs. 

He pulls you into his arms and kisses you again. He tucks your head into his chest andyou curl up to him. You’re still crying but there are no sobs, tears are just falling out of your eyes. 

«Do you want to know what my first thought was when I first saw you?» he asks and you nod.

«I thought that you were gorgeous and that Obama had gifted me an angel. You were so cute standing there all angry at him for sitting on a desk.» he says with a laugh. His voice is still shaky but he’s calming down.

“You think I’m gorgeous?” 

«Uhhhh??? Obviously dude? I think you’re cute, handsome, funny, adorable, kind, perfect-»

“Okay! Stop. I get it.” Your cheeks are so fucking hot right now. 

You both curl up on the couch and continue watching the movie you had picked out. When you ask Dave if you two could cuddle he jumps at the opportunity and hugs you tight. When you eat the chocolates that he bought you notice that they are 90% dark, your heart does something funny. You can’t believe that he remembers such stupid things about you.

What are you guys? Are you dating now? You’d love to have Dave as a boyfriend. You don’t really wanna be known as the guy from Texas who was Dave’s Valentine one year. You want to fly to France to visit him and all of his friends, you want to kiss him whenever you feel like it. You want to make sure he eats properly and stays hydrated. You want to experience life with him.

“Dave?”

«Hm?» 

“Will you be my boyfriend?”

He kisses you in response and you don’t think you’ve ever been happier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! They finally fucking kissed!! I’m a very proud dad 
> 
> Halfway through writing this I had the idea to make Karkat get mad at Dave after the kiss. It would have been super angsty ending. Kinda glad I didn’t do that, I rather the boys just be happy.


	7. Epilogue: Oui Oui Baguette

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little epilogue that takes place two years after Dave and Karkat’s first kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The writing in this chapter is a little funky and I have no idea why, probably because it was written at 2 am. 
> 
> I have a shit ton of things to say but first of all thank you guys so much. The support on this fic has been insane and I’m genuinely so happy that so many people liked it! The fic was only supposed to be 4 chapters but as you can tell that changed lol. There’s so much more I wanna say but I’m gonna say it in the end notes. Enjoy this cute little epilogue!

** 2 years later **

Your name is Karkat Vantas and you’re fucking terrified of heights.

But here you are, getting ready to board a plane for 8 hours where you’ll be 35 000 feet in the air, all so that you can see your stupid boyfriend. You’ve never been on a plane before nor have you ever had a reason too. Everything you’ve ever needed was right here. On the ground. In Texas. Well everything except the love of your life. He’s in Paris. 

You’ve never been so excited and nervous, it’s been about a year since you’ve seen Dave. The last time you both saw each other he came to Texas, again. The first thing he said to you, after kissing you senselessly and making a huge scene in the airport, was how the sky was so much more orange in Houston than in Paris. He’s such a weirdo, but you love him none the less. It was in that moment though that you decided you had to visit Paris. How much different could the sky be? It’s probably his shades that are tricking his eyes. Thinking about Dave keeps some of your nerves down but also brings new ones. Thinking about Dave means thinking about planes and planes are not good. You try to remember good memories with Dave. 

Suddenly you remember the day Dave left, the first time that is, when his exchange program was over. It was a very cold March day, the wind was wild and it was pissing rain. It seemed like Mother Nature knew that it was gonna be a sad day and had to add to the ambiance. You drove with Ms. Maryam, Kanaya, and Dave to the airport. Kanaya sat upfront while you and Dave sat in the back. You all exchanged conversations together and it was nice but you knew the time was about to arrive. You had never thought that anyone would ever want to date you, so you never thought about long distance relationships, but now that you have one it’s making you a little nervous. What if he stops liking you? What if you stop liking him? What if he cheats on you while he’s back in France? Well you knew that he wouldn’t, he’s not that kinda person but still. What if the distance made the both of you uncomfortable? When Dave pulls you against his chest and kisses you softly on the head you feel it. You know it’s all gonna work out because it’s with Dave. When you guys had finally gotten to the airport there was a lot of fucking crying from everyone. Especially you though, you sobbed because you’d miss him and because you didn’t want him to leave. He cried too which was kinda weird to see, since he would usually try to be stoic around the Maryams but you guess that the mask comes off when you aren’t sure if you’d ever see these people again. Kanaya cried and hugged him and so did Ms.Maryam. After Dave left it was quiet in the car, the last thing you remember is passing out and then waking up in your own bed. 

You feel a hand on your back and you look up to find Kanaya. Right, it’s all gonna be good, Kanaya’s coming with you. The day after you and Dave became an official couple Kanaya got the courage to ask Rose out on a virtual date. You and Dave watched out of frame as the whole scenario played out, Rose of course said yes. You and Dave gave each other a look and gave Kanaya a thumbs up before leaving. Later Dave told you that he had never seen Rose so happy, and in turn that made him extremely happy, which made you happy. It was a very happy night. All that to say that Kanaya is coming with you to Paris to surprise Rose. 

You and Kanaya had become closer over the past 2 years. You both even ended up going to the same college, apparently they offered English majors and fashion majors at ALUC. You both rent a studio apartment together, its a pretty small place but its finally nice to not live with Kankri anymore. You can finally fucking watch 18+ movies in the living room without being yelled at, even though you’re fucking 20 years old. You and Kanaya had also adopted a cat, his name is Mayor and he’s a black cat with little white patches all over him. You and Kanaya love him to death and she even started making him clothes, it’s fucking adorable when he wears them. Dave also loves him, every time you guys do a video call the first thing he does is ask to talk to Mayor, or as he says ‘The Mayor’. 

Dave had also moved out of his apartment with his Bro into a house with Egbert. You’ve seen pictures of it and it’s actually really fucking good for a first house, better than your old house that’s for sure. Dave always talks about getting a dog and naming it Jack. You have no idea why, but you do know that John has a big salamander named Cassie and he treats her like his actual child. It’s actually pretty endearing to watch, Dave’s recorded multiple videos of John babying Cassie and it’s fucking hilarious to see. John always gets pissed when he sees Dave recording though and that makes it even funnier.

Apparently John and Jade have picked up some English over the past two years. You were so fucking happy to hear when Dave told you, you’re relieved that you won’t have to speak French the entire time. You’ve gotten better at it but it’s still fucking exhausting to maintain conversations in it for hours. You’re excited to meet Dave’s friends too, you’d never tell them that though. You’ve talked to Rose on more then one occasion, and she’s your kind of person. You’re hoping that you’ll be able to have a conversation with her about the book she’s writing, you’re really fucking curious what genre she’s decided to write for debut book. You and John have developed somewhat of a teasing friendship. His ‘go with the flow’ attitude kinda pisses you off sometimes and your short temper annoys him but the two of you make it work. Jade was very flirtatious with you the first time you two talked, she’s nice and all and you like her but not in that way. So after making that clear the two of you became actual friends. Shes probably the only other person, other than Dave, that you talk to on a weekly basis. She’s fucking awesome, although, again you would never tell her that. Dave’s also introduced you to Dirk and Roxy who are apparently also Dave’s cousins. He didn’t mention them when he was in Texas but apparently Kanaya knew about them. They’re pretty nice too, Roxy has a bubbly personality where as Dirk is more like Dave in the sense that he’s stoic and untouchable. Dave told you about his obsession with horses though, so you figure he’s just a dork deep down.

An announcement plays on the speakers in the airport that snaps you out of your thoughts. 

_ ‘Flight 612 to Paris, France is now boarding.’ _

You push a lump down in your throat and get up out of your seat in the waiting room and walk towards a booth where people are boarding. Kanaya is leaning against you and you know she’s doing that to keep you grounded. Which you really appreciate because you are very close to snapping. Fucking anxiety. Kanaya grabs your hand and leads you onto the plane. She’s so patient it’s incredible, well except when it comes to technology, you’ve seen her flip her shit more than once while trying to use her computer. Once you’re both seated, you take out the melatonin you brought with you. There’s no way you’re gonna be able to sleep on the plane with your insomnia and all the anxiety you have right now without a little help. You’re really hoping the pills will kick in so that you can sleep the whole time. Which is the ideal plan, you don’t wanna be awake if there’s any turbulence because you might fucking lose it. Kanaya tells you to wait a little before falling asleep, which you do, the flight attendants make some announcements that you aren’t really paying attention too, although you really should be. When Kanaya gives you the okay you take as many pills as you can, which is one unfortunately, and wait till it kicks in. It takes about an hour, and you’re a wreck for that entire time, you distracted yourself with a book that Tavros bought for you. It’s another shitty one, god this guy sucks at picking out books that aren’t misogynistic. When you get to sleep you don’t wake up till Kanaya is shaking you, she’s frantically telling you that it’s time to leave.

You feel very sluggish but all the anxiety you had about the plane is turning into anxiety about seeing Dave. But it’s not a bad feeling you’re getting, it’s a good one! It’s 5 in the morning when you finally get off the plane. The airport is almost deserted except for the people who just got off the flight you were just on. You go to collect your baggage and Kanaya does the same. She seems very anxious as well.

“You okay Kanaya?”you ask, cause you feel like you don’t ask enough.

“I am nervous Karkat, but other than that I’m very excited. What about you?” She asks in a sleepy voice, she must have just woken up as well.

“Same.” You say with a smile.

The two of you walk towards the main part of the airport where Dave is supposed to meet the two of you. Since it’s still rather early Kanaya had asked Dave to not bring Rose. She wanted to make her breakfast in bed, which you thought was the sweetest thing ever holy shit. Romance expert of the day goes to Kanaya Maryam.

You and Kanaya are making idle chatter when you notice something red in your peripheral vision. When you turn he’s standing there.

_Dave_.

Your suitcase is long forgotten with Kanaya as you run to him and jump in his arms. Good thing he’s fucking strong. He spins the two of you around in circles for what feel like an eternity, the feeling of being in his arms again is surreal. When he finally stops you take of his shades and you kiss him passionately on the lips. You try to make up for all the kisses you’ve missed over the past year in one kiss but obviously it’s not enough. Eventually you both pull away. 

«Fuck I can’t believe you’re actually here Crabcakes!» he says, he sounds way too energetic considering it’s 5 in the morning.

“I told you not to fucking call me that.” You say in a playful tone. You kiss him once again.

«I love you.» He kisses the top of your nose. It’s been about a year and a half since the first time you both said your I love you’s but it still sends shivers down your spine when Dave says it to you.

“I love you too.” You say kissing him again. You remember that Kanaya is standing behind you, she probably would also like to say hi to Dave. You shimmy out of Dave’s death grip, he whines but when he sees Kanaya he runs towards her and gives her a hug and a kiss in the cheek. Kanaya told you that Dave was apparently never affectionate before his exchange program. It’s good that he learnt that it’s okay to let his guard down around people he trusts. The two of them have almost become like siblings and the distance makes their friendship even stronger. It’s great that your housemate and boyfriend get along. 

Dave grabs your hand and looks and you and Kanaya.

«Com’n we’re gonna go jump on Rose’s bed and scare the shit out of her!» Kanaya flashes a mischievous smile to both of you as you exit the airport.

Right before you get in Dave’s old pickup truck you grab him by the waist and whisper in his ear.

“Je t’aime avec tous mon cœur, mon chum.”

He turns to you and looks surprised. He smiles and grabs you by your cheeks and kisses you hard.

You know he loves you back.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all I stopped responding to comments because it makes me very anxious lol but I’ve read all of them! They really help me continue writing and I really appreciate them and I wanna thank you guys again!  
> I wrote this story when I was really missing my old school, it was an all French school and I really wanted to integrate that into this fic, hence why Dave is from Paris lol.
> 
> Secondly I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that the title of this fic is in reference to a song. ‘When he sees me’ from the musical waitress, the only thing I think about when I listen to that song is DaveKat
> 
> Lastly I have an Instagram and Tumblr. Insta is @purified.anura and tumblr is @purified-anura, I’ll probably post updates to future fics and I also draw if you wanna check that out! 
> 
> Thank you!! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Translation for Dave and Jake’s conversation 
> 
> Bonjour, tu t’appelles Dave Strider n’est-ce pas?= hello, your name is Dave Strider right?
> 
> Ouais c’est moi ça, le seule et unique = yep that’s me, the one and only
> 
> Est-ce que tu préférais que je te parle anglais ou en français? = Would you prefer if I speak to you in English or in French?
> 
> C’est une class d’anglais, alors l’anglais c’est bon, mais je ne peux pas te garantir que je vais répondre en anglais. = This is an English class, so English is good, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll answer in English


End file.
